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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28703619">Herald of Spring</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea'>Neyiea</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Gotham (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abduction, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drugging, Hades/Persephone vibes, M/M, On Hiatus, Pining, Slow Burn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:08:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>46,671</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28703619</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Far below the surface, in Jeremiah's underground kingdom, he becomes more and more sure of what he is meant to do. The idea for his new maze forms and solidifies, but that is not the only thing which his mind lingers on. </p><p>Jeremiah hadn't felt true warmth in a long time.</p><p>Not until Bruce entered his domain.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jeremiah Valeska/Bruce Wayne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>121</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>183</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheba_Al_Hurra/gifts">Sheba_Al_Hurra</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Months ago, when chapter 2 of 'Would you love me more/If I killed someone for you?' was posted, Sheba_Al_Hurra mentioned the Hades/Persephone vibes of a scene and I, being the person that I am, absolutely had to plan out something with even <i>stronger</i> Hades/Persephone vibes. This fic has been a long time coming, and the idea seems to keep expanding because when I was originally planning it out I really did think this would be a two-parter, but now? Absolutely not. The chapter count is a tentative guess and is likely to change. </p><p>Given the current state of the world and my profession I may (or may not, if things are good) be called in to work more often than usual depending on what covid numbers in my region are like, so I can't really promise a steady update schedule because I have zero idea what the oncoming weeks/months will bring.</p><p>Except for spring, of course. :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At first there is anxiety and aching as he crumples to his bunker floor, no longer strong enough to stand. He cannot be sure how much time passes as he kneels, staring at his hands as the colour leeches out of them, mind buzzing with so many thoughts—and so much muted screaming and laughter—that he cannot make any of them out.</p>
<p>Jeremiah shuts his eyes tightly. </p>
<p>A gift, a trap, a cloying vapour; the bomb collar at the music festival hadn’t been meant to kill him after all, because Jerome didn’t want him dead. He hasn’t been poisoned. He’s not going to die. </p>
<p>He’s not going to die.</p>
<p>His racing thoughts begin to settle. His breathing becomes calm and steady. More time passes.</p>
<p>When his eyes open again there is the start of something new; clarity that there never was before. It was as if he had spent his entire life thus far only seeing bits and pieces of a bigger picture, and now he was finally able to begin making out what had been hidden away from him.</p>
<p>He slowly stands; knees sore from hours knelt upon his hard floor, throat sore from screaming, cheeks sore from smiling. </p>
<p>He is different, now.</p>
<p>He is better. </p>
<p>He is as he was meant to be. </p>
<p>And as time crawls forward he becomes more and more sure of what he is meant to do. </p>
<p>Underground, his domain, is cool-toned and dimly lit. The days pass calmly in the center of the maze, the heart and soul of him contained within the walls of his workspace. His home was his magnum opus, or at least it had been thus far, at least until he’d begun the concept for the generators. It stretches out for miles, peaceful and undisturbed—until certain events brought his existence back into knowledge—while above him city life went on; full of corruption and sorrow and vile deeds. Things that he hadn’t bothered to concern himself with, before. Things that he would not bother to concern himself with, now.</p>
<p>Underground, in his maze, he is Sovereign. </p>
<p>Aboveground there is theft and murder and deranged idiots breaking out of asylums, but the people who lived in the chaotic disorder of Gotham had chosen to reside there, and he didn’t need to feel sympathy towards those who made themselves into easy targets for villains and crime. Things like that could not, would not, affect him. </p>
<p>Underground, in his maze, there is order and serenity.</p>
<p>And solitude. </p>
<p>Something pangs in his chest, an odd little flutter. He feels the ghost of a hand against his own; the steady grip of soft, elegant fingers. He closes his eyes and sees a face looking up at him with unconcealed wonder. The flutter intensifies, and his eyes drift open.</p>
<p>But perhaps there did not need to be solitude, always.</p>
<p>Down here—where sunlight could not reach, and grass could not grow—Jeremiah had been protected by the all-consuming quiet of isolation; a sunken fortress that none could easily trespass upon, where all that he needed was made easily available to him. The dark and the cold and the impenetrable walls warded off all but himself and his closest companion, and the outside world began to fade from his memories. Here he had been for years, sheltered underground, and even his heart had been protected by an icy barrier that had naturally built up over time. Links to the outside world were a weakness. A lack of sympathy and empathy was a strength. There had been no need to open himself up to strangers. No need to offer care or love. Nothing could crack into his stronghold. Nothing could crack into him. </p>
<p>But then Bruce had walked in; a gentle, warm presence. He had brought light into Jeremiah’s domain with his voice, and his smile, and his eyes full of wonder. He had brought fresh air, and the scent of unknown flowers. The dark and the cold that Jeremiah knew so well had seemed to retreat when he stood near. He, so used to seclusion, had felt a spark of something new; a need to draw closer to the warmth and the light that radiated off of Bruce.</p>
<p>Ice began to thaw.</p>
<p>Bruce had done what no others could do, he had drawn Jeremiah aboveground.</p>
<p>Jeremiah flexes his fingers; thinking of generators and handshakes and promises and mazes.</p>
<p>Bruce had been like a herald of spring, after a years-long winter. </p>
<p>Jeremiah closes his eyes and thinks of Bruce’s face. The curve of his mouth, the softness of his cheeks, the dark fan of his eyelashes, the warmth of his eyes. </p>
<p>He did not need solitude, always.</p>
<p>And while his maze had once been his greatest work there was another project to focus on, now. And another one, kept blessedly secret, until the right time came. To make a true work of art he would have to wipe the slate clean. </p>
<p>And then Jeremiah would have a new maze, a better maze, sprawling across the entire island.</p>
<p>His kingdom, now extending to the aboveground. </p>
<p>Aboveground there was sunlight, and fresh air, and the scent of unknown flowers.</p>
<p>Aboveground there was Bruce.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Glad to hear that people are so excited for this!! </p>
<p>Mixing things up a bit, as I tend to do, because I have a hard time believing that in 'To Our Deaths and Beyond' Bruce just, like, hangs around with Selina and Tabitha--the lady who was totally okay with him being manipulated and murdered, and was the driving force behind Bruce getting within cutting distance to bring Ra's back--until they all go save Barbara during the daytime. Let my boy have some space and support.</p>
<p>Of course it kind of backfires on him and is the kick-start of everything, but that's just because Jeremiah loves him so much. </p>
<p>Anyway. If I could recommend a song which has really similar vibes to this fic, The Dreamer by Amigo the Devil is great. </p>
<p>xoxo</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jeremiah’s heart thrums in his chest, enlivened in a way that it had never been—not even when Jeremiah was working on the things which made him the most excited, the most eager—before his thoughts began to linger upon Bruce more and more often. He hadn’t known what to make of it at first, so unused to the sensation of his own steadily racing pulse.</p>
<p>He’s begun to figure it out, now. </p>
<p>“Bruce,” he murmurs under his breath. Even just the utterance of his name makes Jeremiah feel warmer, as if he has stepped into a ray of sunlight after spending too long in the cool, dim shadows. </p>
<p>No matter what happens when his plan finally begins to unfold—he’s not like Jerome, he’s not going to kill people for absolutely no reason, he’ll allow citizens a few hours to evacuate—he’s going to have to find a way to keep Bruce behind with him when his new maze is completed. It wouldn’t feel right, otherwise. </p>
<p>The sun would not feel as warm, nor the air as fresh, nor the scent of flowers as sweet, if Bruce were not there to amplify all good things with his smile and his voice and the gentle touch of his soft hands. </p>
<p>He thinks about his new beginning—their new beginning—often, lying awake in bed and waiting for sleep to take him. There will likely be a few lingering citizens, he doesn’t expect the evacuation will go as smoothly as it could if there were competent people in charge, but for the most part almost everyone will be gone from the island. Ecco will remain with him, of course, and his brother’s cult followers would switch loyalties once they realized that he was capable of all that his brother was not, and Bruce would stay with him, too. </p>
<p>He and Bruce together, nestled in the safety of the center of the maze.</p>
<p>He and Bruce together, with no earthly force able to part them. </p>
<p>Jeremiah wouldn’t allow otherwise. </p>
<p>Bruce, he thinks as he drifts into slumber. He dreams of watching skyscrapers fall, of light dawning over a city that has been remade, of proving himself to be better than his brother could have ever hoped to be. He dreams of a warm presence at his side through it all, and although in the dream he never turns to look he knows, without seeing, that it is Bruce beside him.</p>
<p>Only Bruce was capable of making him feel a warmth like that. </p>
<p>He slowly makes his way through all the pages of his brother’s diary, he shows Bruce the process of creating the foundational components for the generators, he conspires with Ecco to make certain that all of their bases are covered, he watches Bruce watch him as he works and gradually begins to think about what it would be like to kiss him. He continues to memorize Jerome’s schemes and fantasies and scowls, hands clenching into enraged fists, every single time that there is a mention of Bruce being hurt or killed.</p>
<p>He will prove himself better than Jerome by doing all that he could not.</p>
<p>But not that. Never that.</p>
<p>He’s going to keep Bruce safe, going to protect him, going to shelter him away from the entire world. Bruce was bright and vivid and clever and kind; lit up from the inside. A gentle, warm glow—the quintessence of life itself—radiated within the depths of him and extended outwards, evident in the warm shine of his eyes. It drew Jeremiah closer, closer, each and every time that he and Bruce were together. There was a pull between them—magnetic, instinctive, electric—and Jeremiah was weak against it. There were times when he almost couldn’t bear to see Bruce go, times when he almost wished to beg Bruce to stay underground with him. Watching Bruce leave, even though he’d promised to return, made Jeremiah’s chest feel hollowed out, as if Bruce were taking his heart with him. </p>
<p>As if Bruce was his heart. </p>
<p>He dreams of detonations, of Bruce beside him. He dreams of skyscrapers falling, of his new maze. He dreams of hiding Bruce away in the fortified center of his new stronghold where no one could ever find him and nothing could ever hurt him. He dreams of tucking flowers behind Bruce’s ear—a long stem of vividly pink, tubular blooms; foxglove—and Bruce smiling up at him; more radiant than the sun.</p>
<p>When he wakes up his chest aches, and he reaches into the empty space beside him wishing for a warmth that is not there. </p>
<p>Time stretches on, and he feels lonely in the wake of a dream where Bruce had been with him the entire time. Ecco is out preparing the hideaway that Jeremiah will use once his bunker has gone up in smoke, so not even she is there to soothe the sting of isolation that he has begun to feel so keenly, now. He works in the quiet, not as motivated as he would be, if only Bruce were with him. The day passes suffused with melancholy, and night silently falls as it always does, with the progression of the sky invisible to him.</p>
<p>His steady, slow moving hands momentarily pause their work. He thinks of what it would be like to watch the sun set with Bruce, to look up at stars that Jeremiah has long since forgotten, to be close to him in the gentle stillness of a night outside—safe, because Jeremiah’s maze would be the safest place for them—and to eventually watch the sun rise together.</p>
<p>He thinks that it would be beautiful.</p>
<p>An alarm startles him out of his reverie and his gaze swings to the monitors, eyes catching movement from one of the cameras outside.</p>
<p>“Bruce?” He can hardly believe it. He stumbles up from his chair, staggering closer, peering at the face that he thinks about so often. On the monitor Bruce rubs at his eyes and forces his posture straighter before he reaches a hand up to press on the button for the intercom.</p>
<p>Jeremiah—startled and delighted and so eager to see him—presses the button to open the door before Bruce even has the chance to announce his presence. On the monitor Bruce’s hand pauses, and he looks at the door—which he must have heard buzz open—and then he looks up to the camera. Jeremiah meets eyes that cannot see him back, currently, but will very soon, and he smiles.</p>
<p>At least until he sees that Bruce is not smiling. Usually, when Bruce came to see him, he was smiling. </p>
<p>Something is wrong, he thinks. The suspicion niggles in the back of his mind as he scrambles to put in his contacts and find his false glasses before he quickly makes his way out of the office, not wanting to waste any time.</p>
<p>Bruce isn’t smiling, something is wrong. </p>
<p>He nearly collides with him on the final turn before reaching the staircase to the outside world. Bruce takes several quick steps backwards as Jeremiah’s feet stumble to a stop. They both stare at each other in startled silence—Bruce due to the abruptness of Jeremiah’s arrival, Jeremiah due to the anxious panic that he cannot seem to fight down—until Bruce eventually calls out a whispered, subdued greeting.</p>
<p>Jeremiah means to echo it back to him, but his roving eyes catch on something that captures his attention too suddenly to ignore. </p>
<p>There is a strip of fabric tied around Bruce’s hand. The palm is saturated with red. </p>
<p>“You’re hurt.” Jeremiah’s chest pangs in time with the thrum of his heart. Bruce had been hurt and Jeremiah, currently confined underground, hadn’t been able to stop it. “What happened?”</p>
<p>“Too many things,” Bruce replies softly, uncharacteristically cryptic. It makes Jeremiah feel even more unsettled, because Bruce was usually so much more open with him. </p>
<p>“May I have a look?”</p>
<p>The fingers of Bruce’s injured hand twitch, hesitant. Jeremiah longs to soothe whatever concerns that he may have, longs to soothe his aches and pains, longs for Bruce more than he has ever longed for anything.  </p>
<p>“Please?”</p>
<p>Bruce slowly reaches out, and Jeremiah takes the injured hand into both of his own, cradling it gently and carefully moving aside the makeshift bandage.</p>
<p>He is not sure what he had expected, but it is not what he finds. Because what he finds does not look like it could have happened accidentally. What he finds looks as if it had happened on purpose. What he finds fills him with a sudden rage which he has to smother, because what Bruce needed now was tenderness and care and not Jeremiah snarling in his face demanding a list of names or descriptions of those who were responsible for this.</p>
<p>He swallows the anger down and it burns brightly in the heart of him to be excavated later, but he does not let that emotion seep into the expression on his face or effect the way that he is holding Bruce.</p>
<p>“If you come with me I could make sure that this is properly disinfected and dressed.”</p>
<p>Bruce’s breath hitches at the offer, as if he had not expected it. His eyes gloss over. He swallows and nods tightly, trying to keep his own emotions under control. It breaks Jeremiah’s heart, to see him so upset. </p>
<p>“Thank you,” Bruce says.</p>
<p>“It’s no problem,” Jeremiah answers, earnest honesty threaded through his voice. “That’s what friends are for, isn’t it? Taking care of each other.”</p>
<p>Keeping each other safe.</p>
<p>If Jeremiah’s new maze were already a reality, if Jeremiah had been able to shelter Bruce with his ingenuity and brilliance, then Bruce would not have been hurt like this. Jeremiah is sure of it. Jeremiah was still safe underground in the maze that had been his home for years, but aboveground, until Bruce had taken the place where he belonged at Jeremiah’s side, Bruce was vulnerable. </p>
<p>The knowledge—and the irrefutable proof of it—makes Jeremiah wish, even more than he usually does, that Bruce would stay with him always. Though he worries that Bruce, used to the expansive life aboveground, would wither away in the dark—a rare flower denied light, a lovely song-bird trapped in a cage—it would not be much longer until Jeremiah’s bunker was no more. If Bruce could survive underground for just a few weeks…</p>
<p>Jeremiah ushers Bruce into the office, as if Bruce hasn’t already memorized the path there, and he guides Bruce down into a chair before finding one of the first-aid kits that Ecco had stashed away and settling himself in another chair that he nudges with his foot to be directly across from Bruce. He tries to be gentle as he cleans the cut, but Bruce’s purposefully even breaths, pale face, and tightly pursed lips weigh heavily upon Jeremiah no matter how soft his touch is. Eventually his work is done, but he doesn’t draw away from Bruce.</p>
<p>He can’t. Not right now; not while Bruce is hurting.</p>
<p>The silence between them is broken by the soft buzz of a phone vibrating. Bruce closes his eyes and exhales heavily, as if the weight of the entire world is sitting upon his shoulders. His phone buzzes again, but he makes no move to take it from his pocket. </p>
<p>“You probably want to know what’s going on,” Bruce says lowly, gaze drifting down to their shoes. “And I wish that I could tell you everything, Jeremiah, but I can’t. Not right now. I came here because I just… I needed somewhere to retreat to, for a while, where I wouldn’t be found. Where I could process what’s happened myself, without anyone breathing down my neck.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah’s heart aches. He doesn’t speak. </p>
<p>Bruce’s phone buzzes a third time and he slowly digs it out, eyes briefly trailing over his notifications before he sets it to silent and tucks it away. </p>
<p>“Or maybe I just want an hour or two to pretend that what happened didn’t happen, and then I’ll be able to go back out there and deal with it, but it’s difficult. It’s really difficult, Jeremiah.” Bruce’s eyes are gleaming, and he blinks rapidly to hold back the tears that are building up. “I’m going to have to do something that I don’t want to do. Something I’ve done before. Something I never wanted to do again. It’s the only way for everyone around me to be safe.”</p>
<p>“But will you be safe?”</p>
<p>Bruce’s eyes snap up to him. Jeremiah holds his breath and waits. </p>
<p>Bruce doesn’t reply, but that is an answer in and of itself. He must see the emotions twisting on Jeremiah’s face—he is too struck to hold back the sudden wave of acute worry; Jerome had wanted Bruce hurting and dying. How likely was it that Jerome’s followers wanted the exact same thing even if Jerome was dead? How likely was it that it was them who had hurt Bruce?—because he reaches out with his uninjured hand to settle it upon Jeremiah’s knee. Were it not for the overarching situation Jeremiah thinks that he might have broken out into goosebumps at the sensation of it. </p>
<p>“My life wouldn’t be in danger,” he says eventually. </p>
<p>But that didn’t mean he was safe. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t get hurt.</p>
<p>“Was it Jerome’s cult that did this?” Jeremiah had wanted to turn them all, to use them all, but if some of them had ganged up on Bruce then he would have to weed them out and destroy them. Ruthlessly.</p>
<p>“No, no,” Bruce says, voice hushed, as if he is the one trying to soothe Jeremiah’s worries. “I promise that it wasn’t them, Jeremiah. I promise that I didn’t lead them here.”</p>
<p>That’s not why I’m worried, Bruce, Jeremiah thinks desperately, so full of emotion that he’s choking on it. </p>
<p>“There’s someone from my past who’s back again. He didn’t want to come back, but now he’s here, and he’s dangerous, and the people who follow him are dangerous. I can’t—there’s so much about me that so few people know, Jeremiah, please believe that I’m not purposefully trying to keep secrets from you. I do trust you. You’re my friend. I feel…” Bruce’s eyes drop to their feet again, and his hand slips off of Jeremiah’s knee. “I feel safe with you.”</p>
<p>You are safe with me.</p>
<p>You’re safest when you’re with me.</p>
<p>Please, please; stay where you’re safe. Please, please; I don’t want you to get hurt again.</p>
<p>“Will you tell me his name?” The name of the person who had unsettled Bruce so completely. Jeremiah would memorize it. Would scour the earth for it. Would wipe it out of existence so that Bruce never had to worry about them again.</p>
<p>“Ra’s,” Bruce answers after a long moment. “His name is Ra’s al Ghul.” </p>
<p>A silence builds between them, so heavy that Jeremiah can feel it pressing against him.</p>
<p>“Jeremiah.” Bruce’s voice is weak. “Is it alright if I stay here for a little longer?”</p>
<p>“Oh, Bruce.” He could stay here forever, if he wanted. He would stay with Jeremiah forever, once the new maze was completed. Jeremiah had thought that he could wait until then, but now every hour from the present moment to when the detonations finally went off appears as a trial that he must struggle to get through. “Of course it is.”</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Bruce’s hands twist together, and Jeremiah is almost overcome with the desire to enfold Bruce in his arms. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>“Do you need anything?” Anything Bruce wanted, Jeremiah would provide. Anything Bruce needed, Jeremiah would offer. Bruce, who asked for so little but deserved so much, could make any request of Jeremiah, and Jeremiah would relentlessly find a way to make it happen. “I could make us some coffee.”</p>
<p>“I don’t think so. I feel too wound up right now for a bunch of caffeine.”</p>
<p>“Tea?” Jeremiah offers, and something about Bruce loosens.</p>
<p>“Tea would be nice, thank you.”</p>
<p>It is very difficult for Jeremiah to not take Bruce’s face—his downcast eyes and solemn expression; reflective, pensive, <i>upset</i>—in his hands to press soothing kisses against his cheeks, forehead, and at the corners of his eyes. Jeremiah is swept away for a moment, thinking about how Bruce might smile, might lean into his hands, might pucker his lips in preparation for another kiss. He stands before he can do anything rash.</p>
<p>“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he says, hands clenching into fists at his sides because the desire to reach out for Bruce is almost too strong to withstand. “Please, make yourself at home.”</p>
<p>At home.</p>
<p>Someday soon Jeremiah’s home would be Bruce’s home. </p>
<p>Someday soon they would share their space, their rooms, their bed—</p>
<p>He turns away from Bruce swiftly, heat coursing through him.</p>
<p>He is able to calm his racing thoughts as the kettle comes to a boil, his mind focusing on the gloomy present instead of the sublime near-future. </p>
<p>Bruce only wanted to stay for a few hours. After those few hours were up he’d be gone; travelling home in the middle of the night, alone, through a city filled to the brim with disorder and crime. He wouldn’t be safe anymore. Jeremiah wasn’t strong enough, yet, to protect him aboveground. </p>
<p>But Jeremiah could protect him down here. </p>
<p>Nothing would be able to get to him down here.</p>
<p>A flower in the dark, a song-bird in a cage—would Bruce be able to thrive underground in the weeks before Jeremiah’s new maze was formed? Would it really matter if he was thriving as long as he was safe? Would the two cancel each other out? Would he hold it against Jeremiah, if Jeremiah didn’t allow him to leave?</p>
<p>He opens a cabinet to pull out a rarely-used jar of honey to sweeten Bruce’s tea, and he pauses at what else he spots.</p>
<p>A set of prescription bottles for Xander Wilde, lined up in the lowest kitchen cabinet; sedatives and hypnotics. </p>
<p>He hasn’t needed his sleeping pills since he became as he was meant to be. </p>
<p>He stares at the bottles, wavering. To slip Bruce something would be deceitful, and Jeremiah already worries that Bruce will initially be hurt when he learns of the changes that Jeremiah has been making to the generators without him being informed about it. He dreams of Bruce calmly watching skyscrapers fall alongside him, but in his waking moments he thinks that Bruce will not understand, at first, what is going on, why it is happening, what Jeremiah is doing. He will eventually, because Jeremiah will take such care to explain everything to him, but not at the beginning of it all. Not unless Jeremiah doesn’t surprise him, just as he will surprise everyone else. Not unless Jeremiah cautiously eases him into the knowledge.</p>
<p>He opens one of the bottles and stares at the pills inside; there are only a dozen left. So small, but so potent. </p>
<p>If Bruce leaves in a few hours, he will be in danger again. </p>
<p>Jeremiah makes up his mind. Bruce needs to sleep, needs to rest, needs to recover from what has been done to him. If he leaves in the morning, then at least he will have the sunlight to chase some of the erratic wickedness of the city away.</p>
<p>Jeremiah takes one pill and slides it between a quickly torn and folded sheet of parchment paper. He crushes it.</p>
<p>And then he stirs it into the tea, along with a heaping spoonful of honey to hopefully offset the bitterness.</p>
<p>Just until morning, he thinks as he walks back to the office with a warm mug in hand. Please, please, stay with me where it’s safe, just until morning. </p>
<p>Bruce is on his phone when Jeremiah enters the office again, brows furrowed and his fingers slowly trailing over the keypad. </p>
<p>“Are you messaging whoever was trying to get ahold of you earlier?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Bruce answers softly. “My friend is worried about me. I left abruptly. As soon as I could manage. I didn’t say goodbye, or where I was going. I got in my car and I didn’t stop until I was here.” He sets his phone down and Jeremiah holds the mug out to Bruce, a curious mix of emotions whirring inside of him.</p>
<p>There is a flickering of bitter jealousy that there was someone who knew more about the specifics of what had happened to Bruce, but there is also an endearment towards Bruce that is stronger than ever. Jeremiah might not know all of the details, but what mattered the most was that afterwards Bruce had come <i>right to him.</i></p>
<p>Bruce accepts the tea with a grateful murmur. He blows against the steaming surface. He takes a cautious sip.</p>
<p>He doesn’t mention a strange taste or accuse Jeremiah of slipping him anything.</p>
<p>The tension coiling inside of Jeremiah settles, somewhat, and he sits in the chair across from Bruce again.</p>
<p>“Does anyone know that you’re here?” Would Jeremiah have to look out for his door being assailed in the middle of the night by Mister Pennyworth or Detective Gordon?</p>
<p>“No. I should call Alfred, though, to let him know I’m safe.”</p>
<p>You are safe, Jeremiah thinks, warm because Bruce realizes it, too. You are, I promise that you are.  </p>
<p>You’ll always be safe when you’re with me. I won’t allow anything to happen to you. </p>
<p>Bruce makes his call—he tells Alfred that he’s safe, but doesn’t specify where ‘safe’ is, and promises to tell him everything as soon as he gets home—and he drinks his tea, and Jeremiah tries not to stare too hard as slowly but surely the mug is drained dry. Bruce sets it on the desk when he’s finished and looks as though he’s building up the strength to say goodbye earlier than planned, perhaps because of the friend that he’d been texting, but Jeremiah obviously can’t allow him to leave <i>now</i>.</p>
<p>“Would you like to get a little more comfortable? I have a nicer chair in the library.” A love-seat, so that he could curl his legs beside him and prop himself up against the arm as he read. A perfect spot for them to sit together as the drug in Bruce’s system slowly took effect over the course of the next half to three quarters of an hour. </p>
<p>Bruce looks up at him, a subdued smile curling at the corners of his mouth. Jeremiah’s breath catches at the sight of it. </p>
<p>“I didn’t even know that you had a library.” Bruce stands, stretching his arms over his head. “There are so many things down here that I still haven’t seen. Someday you’ll have to show me everything.”</p>
<p>“Someday I’ll show you everything,” Jeremiah promises earnestly. </p>
<p>Someday there would be no secrets between them.</p>
<p>He guides Bruce down a few lengthy corridors, past locked rooms and open maze entrances, until they finally reach the library. There is a floor to ceiling bookcase built into the room’s structure, and a mobile ladder on a track in order to reach the highest volumes. Bruce is drawn towards the wall of books immediately, a hand gently reaching out to trace against exposed spines as his head tilts ever-so-slightly, his curious eyes devouring the titles. Jeremiah watches, almost unbearably fond, as Bruce takes a book from the shelf.</p>
<p>“Come, sit,” Jeremiah bids, settling down on the love-seat and trying not to look too eager as Bruce settles beside him. If reading would help Bruce unwind from whatever awful situation he had been in, Jeremiah was more than willing to sit in friendly silence so that Bruce could concentrate on the text before him. He takes a partially read book that he had left on his side table and flips through the pages slowly, gaze flickering over to Bruce so often that whatever he does read fades from his mind almost immediately. </p>
<p>Eventually Bruce’s head begins to nod, and his eyes begin to drift further and further shut, until they close and do not open again. Eventually his fingers go slack, and Jeremiah grabs onto the slipping tome before the sound of it hitting the floor can disturb the peace. </p>
<p>Bruce is sleeping upright. His face is lax and calm, head listing to the side, lips parted in slumber. </p>
<p>With a trembling hand Jeremiah reaches out to him and runs his fingers through Bruce’s hair.</p>
<p>His skin tingles. His heart pounds. He feels so warm.</p>
<p>Jeremiah shifts beside him and wraps an arm around him, guiding him to Jeremiah’s side so that his head is pillowed on Jeremiah’s shoulder. Bruce feels as if he belongs. And he does.</p>
<p>He belongs with Jeremiah, wherever that may be. </p>
<p>Jeremiah continues to card a hand through Bruce’s hair and, too full of yearning to resist the temptation, he presses a chaste kiss to the crown of Bruce’s head and inhales the vaguely sweet scent of his shampoo. His heart beats wildly in his chest, as if he is in mortal danger and not just effervescently happy. This is the closest that they’ve ever been; closer, even, than Jeremiah has dreamt about. </p>
<p>He pulls a folded flannel blanket from the back of the love-seat, taking care not to jostle Bruce too much, and lays it over both of their laps. His book is long-forgotten, and he instead directs all of his attention upon Bruce who, even while asleep, captures his interest like nothing else ever had and nothing else ever will. </p>
<p>He adoringly ruffles Bruce’s hair, and memorizes the tranquil appearance of his sleeping face, and eventually his breaths shift to mimic Bruce’s steady, slow inhalations.</p>
<p>And eventually he falls asleep, too. He does not dream but the sensation of Bruce, warm and resting against him, perfuses into his slumbering mind and soothes the built-up agitation of the evening. He doesn’t wake until the barest of movements alert him that Bruce has begun to stir and his eyes snap open, instantly alert, in order to watch as Bruce’s eyelashes begin to flutter before slowly prying open. He does not pull away from Jeremiah’s side immediately and instead turns his head, eyes gazing up at Jeremiah hazily. </p>
<p>“What time is it?” Bruce asks, voice heavy with clinging sleep. “I feel so groggy.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah wants to kiss him into full wakefulness. Instead he checks his watch.</p>
<p>“It’s almost ten.”</p>
<p>“Ten?” Bruce shoots up, slumping posture going straight once more. Jeremiah’s side, where Bruce had peacefully slept all night, feels bitterly cold in his sudden absence. “I never oversleep. And I didn’t mean to fall asleep at all.”</p>
<p>“It’s the lack of natural light,” Jeremiah tells him, entirely reasonable, as he fights the urge to guide Bruce back towards him again. “It messes up the body’s circadian rhythm.”</p>
<p>Bruce nods, because Jeremiah’s explanation is sensible, and Bruce is sweetly trusting. “Still, I’m sorry for overstaying my welcome. You could have woken me up.”</p>
<p>“There’s no such thing as you overstaying your welcome.” Jeremiah absolutely cannot bear the idea that Bruce might think that his presence wasn’t wanted so wholly and eternally that Jeremiah physically hurt whenever they were parted. “And you must have been so exhausted, to fall asleep here. Waking you up and letting you drive yourself home would have been dangerous. I must have closed my eyes thinking I just needed a moment before getting ready to stand so that I could situate us both somewhere a little more comfortable and promptly fell asleep myself. Yesterday was a long day for us both.”</p>
<p>Bruce gazes mutely at his injured hand, as if recollecting whatever terrible things that had happened to him last night and finding that Jeremiah’s words rang true.</p>
<p>“Thank you, then, for letting me stay.”</p>
<p>“It was no trouble, Bruce. Any time.” And someday: all the time. “Are you hungry? I could make you something before you go.”</p>
<p>“No, thank you, but I really should be heading home.” Bruce stands, digging into his pocket to grab onto his phone; to call Alfred, no doubt, to let him know that he was still alive and safe. He walks to the doorway and abruptly pauses, his gaze darting back and forth down two matching hallways before he turns, a somewhat sheepish look gracing his face. “Jeremiah, could you help me find my way out? I’m afraid I’ll get lost.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah pulls himself to his feet.</p>
<p>I’d find you no matter where you were, Jeremiah thinks with no small amount of adoration, though the act of guiding Bruce back to the stairs that lead up to the bunker door is bittersweet at best. </p>
<p>“Bruce,” he cannot help but begin as the stairs come into their line of sight. “If you want to talk, after you’ve finished what you need to do, I’m here if you need me. I won’t ask any questions that you’d be unwilling to answer. I won’t ask questions at all, if that’s what you want.”</p>
<p>“Jeremiah…” Bruce blinks rapidly, eyes glossing over like they had last night. Jeremiah’s heart twinges sharply in time with his pulse before suddenly everything is soft and warm and absolutely, utterly perfect because Bruce has leaned in towards him, his arms wrapping around Jeremiah’s waist and his chin resting on Jeremiah’s shoulder. “Thank you, it means a lot to me.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah’s arms lock around him tightly and he fights the strong urge to press desperate, devoted kisses into Bruce’s soft hair. His pulse flutters as he falls even further into love with each lingering second that Bruce holds him, and even after Bruce’s arms fall away as he prepares to step back. Jeremiah's mind flashes with thoughts of keeping him—his herald of spring, his flower, his song-bird, his Bruce—hidden away, lost to everyone except for Jeremiah who would never, ever lose him. Bruce would bring warmth and light and <i>life</i> into Jeremiah’s maze. Bruce would belong with him. Bruce would eventually come to understand why Jeremiah had done it, because Jeremiah would be so very tender as he explained everything. </p>
<p>“Jeremiah?” Bruce’s voice breaks him out of his reverie, and Jeremiah snaps back into the present moment, where Bruce is patiently waiting for Jeremiah to let him go.</p>
<p>It is more difficult, now, than any time before.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” he offers lamely. “It’s been a while since I’ve hugged anyone.”</p>
<p>“It’s alright, Jeremiah,” Bruce soothes. “I understand. Thank you, again, for everything. You’re—” He pauses, just for a moment, eyes dipping down as if in embarrassment before raising back up. “You’re one of the best friends that I’ve ever hand.”</p>
<p>“I feel the exact same, Bruce.” He feels more, even. The desire to kiss Bruce and hold Bruce and keep Bruce surges inside of him, a violent tide that cannot be withstood for long. If Bruce doesn’t leave soon—</p>
<p>Bruce smiles at him and, once again, Jeremiah’s breath catches and his heart skips and he feels warm, warm, warm; like he’s standing in the direct light of the sun after so long spent entrenched in the shadows. Bruce turns, then, to begin his trek up the stairs, and the light sputters out.</p>
<p>“Bruce!”</p>
<p>Bruce twists back to look at him, inquisitive and kind. Jeremiah feels a strong urge to beg; to throw himself on his knees at Bruce’s feet and plead for the sweetest of mercies. Stay with me, stay with me, now and forever and even longer, still.</p>
<p>Jeremiah doesn’t know how many more times he can stand to watch Bruce walk away.</p>
<p>“Drive safe,” he manages, voice wavering. “Text me when you get home? So that I know you’re okay.”</p>
<p>Bruce’s expression softens further, and he nods. </p>
<p>“I will,” he promises. “And I’ll see you in a few days. Goodbye, Jeremiah.”</p>
<p>“Goodbye, Bruce,” he breathes, watching Bruce as he makes his way up the stairs. He turns around one final time after he’s opened the door; haloed by sunlight, a benevolent paragon of springtime and all the good that comes with it. Jeremiah can almost imagine a crown upon his head; a circlet of flowers, crafted and laid atop his soft curls by Jeremiah’s own hands. </p>
<p>Bruce smiles and waves, utterly unaware of his sway and his power and the things that Jeremiah would do to make sure that he continued to smile, and he steps away.</p>
<p>And the door shuts.</p>
<p>And Jeremiah’s eyes sting as the light and warmth and life that Bruce’s company provided withers and fades at his departure.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Chapter count has been upped. It may get upped again, because life's just like that sometimes, but hey, more Wayleska.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An entire day without Bruce after an entire night <i>with</i> Bruce is a hardship almost too difficult to bear.</p>
<p>Ecco arrives in the afternoon with the recording equipment and makeup needed for Jeremiah to fabricate messages that will be sent out once Jerome is finally buried. She notices his low mood as she applies specially commissioned prosthetic scars and paints his face, and she offers her support. Though he is grateful for her ever-present loyalty and concern there is not much that she can do to alleviate the pain of being separated from his heart.</p>
<p>Jeremiah records his messages over and over, until he is sure that his voice and words and actions and expressions unmistakably mark him as his brother, and then he strips every falsified vestige of Jerome from his person.</p>
<p>Somehow the night is even worse.</p>
<p>He is cold and yearning and unspeakably lovelorn. He cannot sleep in his bed, and he finds himself slipping into the library in the middle of the night to lay propped in his love-seat, gripping onto the blanket that had kept Bruce warm as if to steal any remaining trace of his body heat. When he does fall asleep it is fitful, with a growing sense of loneliness and danger, and when he wakes he feels even more tired despite the fact that it is nearly noon. </p>
<p>He prepares for the day with a heavy heart, the only light at the end of the tunnel being that Bruce will come to see him tomorrow afternoon.</p>
<p>Then he sees a notification on his phone, left on his bedside table last night.</p>
<p>He reads the message.</p>
<p>Warmth spreads throughout him. </p>
<p>Hours later he sits impatiently by the monitors, waiting for the very first sign of Bruce. Bruce, who he loved more than anything. Bruce, who had asked if he could come a day early. Jeremiah’s hands had trembled as he typed out a positive affirmation, full to the brim with too many emotions to start naming. </p>
<p>An alarm goes off.</p>
<p>Bruce approaches the bunker door.</p>
<p>Bruce is not smiling.</p>
<p>Jeremiah’s palm slams against the button to unlock the door before Bruce raises his hand towards the intercom, and he doesn’t even wait to see if Bruce glances up at the camera before he runs out of the office, already fully prepared to be seen by someone who is not Ecco—the contacts and glasses had been applied directly after the cosmetics so that he wouldn’t be scrambling to find them a second time. He slows only to take the corner immediately before the stairs, and when he makes the turn he finds Bruce just stepping off of them.</p>
<p>“Bruce?” He is heartsick, lovesick, so anxious that he feels ill. “Is something wrong?” Whatever Bruce thought he had to do, he hadn’t wanted to do it. Was it over, now? Was he suffering from it? How was Jeremiah supposed to comfort him if he didn’t know what Bruce was going through? “Are you alright?” Please, please, please—</p>
<p>Bruce steps towards him, and even though this time Jeremiah can see the hug coming he’s just as swept away by it as the last time. Bruce’s arms around him are loose, and he tucks his face into the crook of Jeremiah’s neck. His hair tickles Jeremiah’s jawline, and Jeremiah’s heart pounds as he reacts after a few stalled seconds, wrapping his arms around Bruce tight and hoping that he’s providing what Bruce obviously felt that he needed. He feels more questions building up in his throat, but he clenches his teeth to keep them back.</p>
<p>He had promised that he wouldn’t ask any questions at all, if that was what Bruce wanted. He doesn’t want to press, doesn’t want to make Bruce uncomfortable, doesn’t want Bruce to leave.</p>
<p>His heart twinges sharply and his hands press harder against Bruce’s back, barely able to keep himself from digging his fingers into the fabric of Bruce’s coat. </p>
<p>He doesn’t want Bruce to leave ever again. </p>
<p>“He’s not gone. He wouldn’t let me do it, this time.” Bruce’s answer is low and vague, muffled even further by his mouth’s proximity to Jeremiah’s shirt collar. “After everything he did last time to make me—” His voice softens even further, an almost imperceptible whisper of air, and his hold around Jeremiah becomes tight. Just as tight as Jeremiah’s grip on him. “Jeremiah, I think that something terrible might happen soon.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah thinks of a diary full of plans that his brother had been too insane to carry out properly. He thinks of Ecco faithfully working on secret projects at his behest. He thinks of bombs and buildings and wiping the slate clean. He thinks of kind, sweet Bruce, and how he might react when he discovers that Jeremiah hasn’t shared everything with him.</p>
<p>He swallows heavily. Considering the circumstances, he doubts that Bruce’s worries are related to him, or were brought on by any suspicion towards him. He’s been careful, so very, very careful around Bruce. Bruce’s current concerns therefore <i>have</i> to be related to the person whose reappearance had shaken him up so much two nights ago. </p>
<p>Ra’s al Ghul. </p>
<p>“What do you think is about to happen?”</p>
<p>Bruce had said that he wasn’t gone. Had Ra’s been responsible for something terrible before? Was that why Bruce was so sure that something terrible would happen now? </p>
<p>“A cataclysmic event that will destroy, and—” His breath hitches. Jeremiah can feel him tremble. “And create.” His voice cracks, and he presses his face further into the crook of Jeremiah’s neck. </p>
<p>Jeremiah runs a hand up and down Bruce’s back, attempting to soothe him while his own mind races.</p>
<p>“And why do you think that?”</p>
<p>A rush of air gusts against Jeremiah’s skin. A humorless laugh.</p>
<p>“If I say it out loud, it won’t make any logical sense.” Bruce sighs, and his arms begin to loosen. “I don’t want to believe it, but I’m not going to be able to stop thinking about it.” He pulls back, but only slightly, Jeremiah’s hands still able to rest against his sides. “I guess that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to come early. After everything that happened yesterday, and the day before, I think I need to rekindle my hope again.” His gaze darts up, expression doleful. “I need to remember that, even if there’s a fire on the horizon, there are good things coming, too.”</p>
<p>“I can understand that.” Jeremiah only wishes that Bruce already understood that sometimes, in order to create a true masterpiece, one needed to destroy what was already there. </p>
<p>And that the creation could be worth the destruction a hundred times over. </p>
<p>“And I promise you, Bruce, that there are good things are on the horizon,” he vows fervently. “For the both of us.”</p>
<p>Bruce’s eyes trace over Jeremiah’s earnest face, and a hint of a smile appears at the corners of his mouth.</p>
<p>“I’m glad that I came today. I’m starting to feel better about everything already,” he says softly, still looking up at Jeremiah, still standing close. His upturned face is almost expectant, as if he is waiting for something—</p>
<p>Jeremiah’s phone buzzes in his pocket, most likely an update from Ecco regarding the progress on his hideaway, and Bruce seems to take that as a signal to step back. Jeremiah’s fingers briefly twitch against empty air; missing, missing, missing. </p>
<p>Bruce’s visit, however pleasant and highly-desired it may be by them both, revolves mostly around work. Jeremiah is purposefully drawing out the generator’s progress, now, having been certain that he did not want to make his first move until Jerome was already in his grave. Even while going at a slower pace Bruce is obviously delighted by every small measure of progress, every indication that things are going exactly as planned, every little bit of information that Jeremiah shares with him, every moment where Jeremiah asks him for any type of assistance. </p>
<p>The tense line of his shoulders loosens, the dull cast of his eyes disappears, and the thing which had bothered him so much that he’d felt he needed to see Jeremiah a day earlier than planned seems to fade from his mind as they work together.</p>
<p>It does not fade from Jeremiah’s mind. </p>
<p>Not in the least.</p>
<p>“It’s amazing, how close we are,” Bruce murmurs.</p>
<p>Jeremiah looks at him, Bruce’s gaze fixed upon the project which brought them together, and yearns to be even closer.</p>
<p>“Any week now, and it will be finished,” he says softly, speaking about so much more than the generators. All he needed was the date when Jerome’s corpse would be laid to rest in a plot of earth, and then so many things could be set into motion. “I’m looking forward to it more than anything.”</p>
<p>Bruce does look at him, then. There is something soft in his gaze which makes Jeremiah’s breath abruptly catch.</p>
<p>“Me too,” he answers, eyes drifting over Jeremiah’s face before settling back on the unfinished generator. “Jeremiah, would you be interested in coming to the Wayne Industries lab with me tomorrow? You don’t have to, your reports are so thorough that everything is being carried out exactly to your specifications, but I thought that you might like to see it all. There’s been a lot of progress since the last time that you visited with me.”</p>
<p>Dozens of unfinished generators, only a few easy tweaks away from turning into what they are truly meant to become. </p>
<p>A second day in a row spent with Bruce. </p>
<p>“I’d like that.”</p>
<p>Bruce’s eyes snap over to him, as if he’d been expecting a polite refusal. Jeremiah’s heart races at the appearance of a small smile which lights Bruce up from the inside, shining outward.</p>
<p>“Great, that’s great. I could come over and pick you up at—”</p>
<p>“Would you like to stay over?” Jeremiah cuts in, even though he knows it’s rude, because he cannot keep the offer in any longer. “We could leave together in the morning.”</p>
<p>And Bruce would be here, safe. Here, with Jeremiah. Here, where no one could ever hurt him. </p>
<p>“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea. With what’s been going on lately Alfred may worry if I’m gone for too long, even if I’m in a place as safe as this.” </p>
<p>The reminder of <i>what’s been going on lately</i> only firms Jeremiah’s resolve. </p>
<p>“Doesn’t it make even more sense, then, that you stay with me?” Jeremiah inches closer, unable to keep himself away. “Bruce, I built this place to be a fortress. I built it to keep myself hidden away. The things that have happened to you <i>up there</i> wouldn’t have happened to you if you were <i>down here</i>, you realize that, don’t you? I don’t want to push, Bruce.” Not when pushing too much meant that Bruce might retreat from him. “But you’re my friend and I’m worried about you.” More than worried, even. Apprehensive and fearful with the knowledge that Bruce was facing unknown hardships without him. “I don’t know everything that’s happened, but I know that <i>he</i> isn’t gone,” Jeremiah reminds him, wishing that Bruce would understand and agree that here with Jeremiah was where it made the most sense for him to stay. “He’s not gone, and you’re not safe.”</p>
<p>Bruce is silent for a long moment, face pensive. </p>
<p>He knows that what Jeremiah said is reasonable. He knows that what Jeremiah said is true. </p>
<p>“My life wouldn’t—”</p>
<p>“Just because your life wouldn’t be in danger doesn’t mean that you’re safe. Bruce, please.” Jeremiah’s voice cracks and Bruce’s expression flickers, as if shocked by Jeremiah’s show of emotion. Bruce is too used to danger and hardship, is too used to what his life had been like before he’d had Jeremiah to worry over him and love him and want the best for him. Jeremiah needs to change that. “You’re my best friend, I want—I <i>need</i>—to know that you’re okay.”</p>
<p>“I’ll be fine, Jeremiah,” Bruce assures him just as Jeremiah utters the suggestion that has been on his mind so often as of late.</p>
<p>“Stay with me.” The offer does not have the whine of a plea, but Jeremiah is so close to folding, so close to begging. “Stay with me, just for a little while. A few days, maybe a week.” Maybe forever. “I’ll send Ecco out periodically to make sure that he’s left the city.”</p>
<p>“Jeremiah…” Bruce lifts a hand, as if to reach out and stroke his fingers along Jeremiah’s cheek, but it diverts to rest against his shoulder, instead. Bruce’s eyes briefly dart away, like he’s embarrassed that he’d almost done something so affectionate when Jeremiah would have given almost anything to feel Bruce’s gentle hand on his face. “Thank you, for everything, but I can’t stay down here for so long. There are things that I need to do.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah doesn’t think he’ll be able to stand watching Bruce walk away again.</p>
<p>He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to keep surviving without his heart. </p>
<p>“Just for one night, then. Bruce, please. Stay for me?”</p>
<p>Bruce’s expression flickers again, his resolve weakening, and Jeremiah presses as hard as he dares to.</p>
<p>“Stay for me,” he repeats softly, and he settles a hand over top of the one that Bruce has rested against his shoulder. He barely manages to resist the act of interlocking their fingers. “Just for one night?” The air is full of a swiftly growing tension, his heart is full of loving devotion, his mind is full of staticky thoughts of what he’ll have to do if Bruce tries to leave and how much Bruce might detest him for it in the time before Jeremiah is able to properly explain himself. </p>
<p>But a small miracle blesses Jeremiah’s courage for making his offer.</p>
<p>Bruce yields. </p>
<p>“One night,” Bruce tells him, eyes drifting down to their hands. Jeremiah is suddenly aware that he’s begun to tightly squeeze at Bruce’s fingers, and his grip loosens. “I’m sorry, Jeremiah, for making you worry about me so much.”</p>
<p>“Bruce, please don’t apologize for this.” Oftentimes he got the feeling that Bruce took on too much responsibility for things he had no real control over, and this only solidified that theory. “Whatever’s going on, it’s not your fault. None of it is your fault.”</p>
<p>Bruce bites his lip, and Jeremiah can feel his hand start to finely tremble underneath his own.</p>
<p>“None of it is your fault,” he repeats, quiet but firm.</p>
<p>“Thank you, Jeremiah,” Bruce responds, voice soft. When his hand slips out from underneath Jeremiah’s Jeremiah has to stifle the urge to chase after it, catch it, bring it to his mouth and kiss it. “I’ll phone Alfred to let him know that I’ll be staying the night.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah barely manages to keep a delighted, too-wide smile from stretching across his face.</p>
<p>The evening passes with an undercurrent of excitement, at least on Jeremiah’s end. He reads Ecco’s updates. He and Bruce share a simple dinner. He talks with Bruce. He watches Bruce. He thinks of reaching out and taking Bruce hands in his own and tugging him into a loving kiss. Then night draws upon them, and the excitement begins to twist into unease. </p>
<p>He worries, agonizing over the idea that Bruce will slip away in the middle of the night. Bruce would leave a note behind, or a text—something to prove to Jeremiah that he was alright and that he appreciated Jeremiah’s offer even if he didn’t actually take him up on it—but…</p>
<p>What if Jeremiah woke up tomorrow morning, and Bruce was gone? The reason didn’t matter—whether he felt that he was intruding, whether he worried about Jeremiah getting caught up in whatever he was currently mixed up in, whether he couldn’t relax enough to fall asleep away from his home, whether a friend texted him in an attempt to draw him away from Jeremiah’s side—what mattered was that Jeremiah would be without him again. </p>
<p>And what if something happened to Bruce after he left? The chances of a tragedy occurring seemed incredibly high. </p>
<p>Jeremiah can’t risk it. He can’t. </p>
<p>He makes tea again.</p>
<p>He crushes a second pill.</p>
<p>He masks the taste with honey. </p>
<p>Bruce will sleep through any impulses to leave. Bruce will stay, and in the morning they will go to the lab together, and Jeremiah will figure out <i>something</i>. Something for Bruce to stay with him another night, and another.</p>
<p>Until it turned into forever. </p>
<p>Bruce drinks his tea after a murmured word of thanks. Once again there is no suspicion, no accusations, no sign that he believes something might be amiss. It almost hurts, to be deceiving him like this again, but until Bruce was willing to stay of his own volition Jeremiah would have to have a direct hand in keeping him close. It was for the best, really. He would explain himself, soon. Bruce would understand everything, soon. </p>
<p>Jeremiah just needed to know when Jerome would be buried. </p>
<p>Nearly thirty minutes after finishing his tea Bruce shows the first signs of the sleeping pill taking effect, and Jeremiah is quick to usher Bruce into his own room for the night. He offers to find something for Bruce to change into, but Bruce waves off the need, tiredly shrugging out of his sweater before Jeremiah can even think to turn away. He has an undershirt on, but it is still the most uncovered that he has ever been in front of Jeremiah. Jeremiah finds himself whirling around immediately, cheeks burning, lest he do something rash like reach out to trace his fingers along the newly-exposed flesh of Bruce’s arms. </p>
<p>“Goodnight Bruce,” he manages stiltedly as he walks to the door. “Sweet dreams.”</p>
<p>“Goodnight Jeremiah,” Bruce answers softly as Jeremiah begins to step out of the room. He yawns, then adds, “See you in the morning.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah turns, just for one final look before the door is completely shut. He swallows dryly at the sight of Bruce’s unguarded back, his undershirt now joining the sweater in being folded upon the bed.</p>
<p>The door meets the frame with a soft click, but Jeremiah doesn’t stray far. </p>
<p>He waits for another agonizing half an hour, just to be sure that Bruce has enough of a chance to actually fall asleep, before he quietly steps back inside and closes the door behind him to keep the light from the hall from disturbing Bruce’s slumber. He drifts over to the bed, footfalls nearly silent, as his eyes start to adjust to the dark. </p>
<p>Bruce looks so at peace, so at home, wrapped in Jeremiah’s sheets in Jeremiah’s bed. Seeing it makes Jeremiah feel beyond warm, edging into <i>hot</i>. His pulse races as he leans in—utterly unable to resist the honeyed lure of Bruce—to press his lips into Bruce’s hair again. It is soft against his mouth, with that same vaguely sweet scent. Jeremiah closes his eyes and lingers; thinking about kissing Bruce like this when he is awake, thinking about kissing Bruce in more intimate ways, thinking about Bruce kissing him back.</p>
<p>Thinking about their future.</p>
<p>Bruce has lived his life as a little prince, but Jeremiah will turn him into something greater, something with more power. They will become a paired Sovereign; like a King and Queen. The skyscrapers of Gotham will fall around them and together they will rise.</p>
<p>Together, together, together. </p>
<p>Jeremiah can hardly wait to fully shed his old self. Jeremiah can hardly wait to prove that he is better than Jerome could have ever been. Jeremiah can hardly wait to have Bruce where he belongs, beside him.</p>
<p>Jeremiah can hardly pull himself away. </p>
<p>His mind is racing to figure out his next steps. Tomorrow they would go to Wayne Industries, and Jeremiah would allow Bruce to soak up the world aboveground for one last time before Jeremiah seized him and brought him to stay underground until his old maze was due to be destroyed. His flower, his song-bird, his Bruce; with him always, never to be parted from his side. Bruce would miss the world above while he was kept away; he’d long for the sunlight, and the fresh air, and the people, but Jeremiah would give him everything that he could to keep Bruce from fading and wilting and suffering. </p>
<p>Jeremiah would give Bruce the whole world, if he could.</p>
<p>He feels frantic and frazzled, with so many options opening up before him. He could have Ecco do something now to rile the Maniax up, or get her to stage some sort of attack to be blamed on them. Jeremiah didn’t know what kind of threat Ra’s posed to Bruce, but he knew what kind of threat the Maniax could pose to Bruce. Bringing Bruce underground could be seen as something heroic, then. As something that had to be done. With Bruce safe underground it was unlikely that Detective Gordon, or Mister Pennyworth, or Bruce’s friends would want him to leave Jeremiah when the chances of him getting hurt outside were so high.</p>
<p>But his plan... If he riled the Maniax up, if he did something to implicate that they were active again and the mad idiots took it as some kind of sign to cause more trouble in the name of their dead leader…</p>
<p>Jerome’s body might not be released in order to be buried, and so much of what Jeremiah planned hinged on that instant being the true start of it all. His recorded messages—to dig <i>him</i> up, to throw <i>his</i> wake, to kill <i>him</i> on-screen prior to Jeremiah revealing his true self to Jim Gordon before the Detective was finally killed—were useless if everyone knew that Jerome hadn’t yet been laid to rest.</p>
<p>Mind spinning with options, he calls Ecco for assistance. He explains as much as he can to her—though some details he keeps for himself, his and Bruce’s own little secrets—and he waits impatiently for her opinion.</p>
<p>“You’re going to come clean to him about everything eventually, right? Once it all starts you want there to be no secrets left between you.” Ecco’s voice is steady and strong. Jeremiah can picture her placid face, entirely unphased by Jeremiah’s desire to abduct Bruce and keep him underground. The only time he had ever seen her startled was when she had first come across him after Jerome’s special present had leeched the pigment from his skin and eyes. “If we do something to stir Jerome’s cult up, or stage an attack on Bruce tomorrow so that we can blame it on them and make it seem as if your bunker is the safest option for him, then that’s just another lie that you’ll have to admit to, in the end.”</p>
<p>She has a point. Jeremiah is far too reasonable to dismiss her insight. And yet.</p>
<p>Jeremiah bites his lip hard.</p>
<p>How many lies did he already have that he would have to confess to? What was one more lie in the long run, especially when its main purpose was to keep Bruce safe? How long would it take for Bruce to realize and accept why Jeremiah had done it all after Jeremiah’s devoted, loving explanations had taken place?</p>
<p>“I can’t be without him, Ecco.” Even now he is pressing his back against the closed door to his bedroom, separated from Bruce by only one barrier and still feeling so cold, so far away. “Not anymore.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t say that you would have to be,” Ecco’s voice gentles, somewhat. “If he will not stay any longer with you, even if you ask, then sometimes the simplest option is the best one. No deceptions, no subterfuge, not with this part.”</p>
<p>“So you’re suggesting that I just take him?”</p>
<p>“More or less,” Ecco replies, tone droll. “Invite him in for something after you’ve returned to the bunker, and don’t let him back out. If he doesn’t want to come in with you, grab him before he can drive away. I could be there to help if he puts up too much of a fight, just text me as you’re leaving downtown.”</p>
<p>“I don’t want to hurt him, Ecco.”</p>
<p>“We could try to drug him, then,” she replies with ease, and Jeremiah pauses for a moment. </p>
<p>Well. There was that, wasn’t there?</p>
<p>The drive from Wayne Industries to his bunker could range from half an hour to forty minutes, depending on traffic. If he slipped Bruce something right before they got into the car he’d be well off of the busiest roads by the time it started kicking in, and if the situation seemed precarious enough Jeremiah would simply make a comment and have him pull over before he had the chance to get too drowsy behind the wheel. Jeremiah would be there to observe and make sure that Bruce was safe. Jeremiah would be there to watch for the signs of oncoming sleep. Bruce’s sudden lethargy could be blamed on how busy of a day it had been for them both, and Jeremiah could suggest that he drive them the rest of the way to the bunker, and offer Bruce a coffee to perk him up for his drive home. </p>
<p>And if Bruce happened to fall asleep in the passenger’s seat then Jeremiah could take Bruce into his arms and carry him over the threshold of the bunker, like a ceremony in and of itself. </p>
<p>“Although it might be difficult for me to find something to put in an aerosolizer on such short notice, and he’d find it suspicious if he catches sight of me coming in a mask. If he manages to drive away or call someone before he gets a full dose—”</p>
<p>“I’ll figure something out,” Jeremiah says lowly.</p>
<p>“I’m certain you will, boss.” Ecco says with complete faith. “Would you like me to pick up anything while you and Bruce are out? Things that might make him a little more comfortable? Favourite books or movies, something that can keep him busy, clothes?”</p>
<p>“Do you even know his size?” Jeremiah asks, slightly affronted at the idea that Ecco might have looked at Bruce closely enough that she could guess the width of his shoulders and the length of his inseam. </p>
<p>“No, but I’m certain you do,” she states like a fact.</p>
<p>And it is. </p>
<p>“I’ll think about it and email you a full list tomorrow morning.” His mind is racing with new thoughts, now. The many small ways that he could bring the outside in, the aboveground under, the feeling of home into an isolated fortress, not only so that Bruce would accept his captivity quicker, but so that it was obvious just how much love and thought Jeremiah had put into it. Bruce would realize, hopefully sooner rather than later, that his abduction and confinement was an act of the most devoted adoration and care. “We’ll leave first thing. I want to give him time to see the city as it is now, before the slate is wiped clean.” Because the next time that Bruce was able to look upon the city-center, everything would be changing for the better. “We may not be back until later in the afternoon.”</p>
<p>“I’ll have plenty of time, then, to get everything right.”</p>
<p>“I know you will.”</p>
<p>He ends the call and goes to the kitchen.</p>
<p>He finely crushes a third pill.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Once again, Bruce is groggy when he wakes up in the morning. Once again, he takes Jeremiah’s explanation that it’s due to the lack of natural light at face-value. Drowsiness clings to Bruce, leaving him even more unguarded than he usually is around Jeremiah—who he rightfully <i>trusts</i> and feels <i>safe</i> with, because Jeremiah would never ever let anything happen to him—and Jeremiah gazes upon his soft expression and mused hair and heavily-lidded eyes with utter adoration. </p>
<p>They share a simple breakfast of cereal, fruit, and strong coffee. Jeremiah thinks of the many mornings to come that will be spent together like this and his heart thrums steadily; anticipatory. When Bruce clears away the dishes—insisting that as a guest it was his duty to clean up and refusing to take no for an answer—Jeremiah smiles at him and laughs softly under his breath.  </p>
<p>And from his phone he emails a list of requests and directions to Ecco. </p>
<p>Bruce has woken up fully by the time they begin the drive over, bright-eyed and eager for the day ahead. Their journey into the center of the city is filled with the delightful sound of his voice speaking about progress, and light, and hope, and changes for the better. He’s happy, and beautiful, and Jeremiah tucks his hands underneath his thighs to help resist the urge to reach into Bruce’s space and touch him in order to feel the pleasant warmth of Bruce’s skin against his fingertips.</p>
<p>“Gotham won’t be the same, once we’ve gotten started,” Jeremiah murmurs lowly. In the back of his mind there is a sharp bark of laughter that he manages to hold down through sheer, stubborn force of will. </p>
<p>Bruce glances at him, his smile widening and causing Jeremiah’s heart to flutter in a way that is customary, now. </p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah’s own grin stretches in response. </p>
<p>And then he catches sight of one of the buildings that is destined to fall, and he turns towards the window so that Bruce cannot see how his smile has split even wider, still. Verging on too wide, like Jerome’s always used to be. He begins to pick out the buildings one by one, imagining the skyline without them. The first time that they had traveled to the Wayne industries lab together his plan was only just a whisper in his ear, a consistent nudge in the right direction, and he hadn’t thought to look at anything but the road ahead as they slipped further and further into the heart of Gotham. He’d idly looked for the towering skyscrapers that he had hand-picked from blueprints and city maps and fervent calculations the last time that they’d visited, but Jeremiah is so much closer to bringing them all down, now, and so much more excited to get started.</p>
<p>He’s thrilled that Bruce thought to invite him to see the progress of their secret project again. It’s so thoughtful, and so very like him. Jeremiah is practically buzzing with excitement when Bruce pulls into his designated parking space and leads Jeremiah inside, down to the lowest level, where security clearance is needed to even access the elevators and staircases that reach it. The security guards are the same as the last time, and they greet both Bruce and Jeremiah politely before, in synchronization, they open the door.</p>
<p>Bruce steps in first, and halfway through the door he turns back to smile at Jeremiah.</p>
<p>Once again, he is haloed by light.</p>
<p>If the generators were already functioning the light cast around him would be a brilliant blue, and Jeremiah’s heart skips a beat at the idea of Bruce drenched in the unmistakable radiance of Jeremiah’s creation. He hopes that Jerome will be buried soon, so that he can finally set up their fateful first test and memorize the way that Bruce’s eyes reflect the light.  </p>
<p>Jeremiah follows Bruce through the short corridor, catching up to walk beside him as they turn into a room lined with a series of three wide ledges on either side, with nearly two dozen almost-finished generators already settled upon the highest ledges. Beyond the anteroom is the lab; empty, at the moment, undoubtedly because Bruce had once again made sure that the space was cleared out for their visit so that no one would disturb them.</p>
<p>It is kept clean, clinical, stark. It is nothing like Jeremiah’s workspace, which is so full of his presence even when he himself is not there. It is nothing like he imagines the spaces that Bruce prefers to occupy looks like, either. But they both fit here, somehow, because these are Jeremiah’s ideas, and these are Bruce’s tools, and together they are forming something so glorious that no one will expect that it is coming. Print-outs of Jeremiah’s notes are kept on various clipboards, and handwritten annotations in a variety of different inks and levels of legibility are scrawled within the margins, but it seems as if the few people directly involved in the project have dutifully followed Jeremiah’s directions to the letter, and have not interfered by attempting to add any of their own personal touches. </p>
<p>He and Bruce thoroughly check over one of the generators together; it and all of the others here are not as far along as the one in Jeremiah’s office, but not even Bruce is familiar enough with the intricate and subtle ins and outs of them to notice the slight differences. As far as Bruce knew the ones that had been put together here are mirrored exactly by the one in the bunker. </p>
<p>They’re close, but not quite there. As soon as he got word that Jerome’s body would be released Jeremiah would forward the last of his notes. </p>
<p>“It all seems to be coming along nicely,” Jeremiah says after making sure that everything is exactly as it ought to be for a solid hour and a half. Bruce trusts the small team that he’s employed here to be precise with the construction of each and every one, so Jeremiah decides not to insult his level of faith by opening up another one to judge their likeness, like he had the last time when there were only three half-finished generators to compare to each other. “It won’t be too much longer, now.” He’s so close to so many victories. “I really do hope to be finished with the generator in the bunker in just a few weeks’ time, if not less. Until then, though, the lab here can continue to manufacture each one individually until we finally reach our four dozen.” He replaces a panel to once again seal the inside components away.</p>
<p>Four dozen generators. Four dozen bombs.</p>
<p>Well, four dozen plus one, though unfortunately the one inside of his bunker would be the very first to detonate. That was simply how the process went; the transition of destruction to creation. It was almost a shame, though, that the bomb that he and Bruce had both put their personal time and effort into could not be preserved as a testament to how well they worked together, and how well they suited each other. He knows with the utmost certainty that there will be many other manifestations of their status as <i>soulmates</i>, but there is a particular amount of sentiment regarding the generators—the tipping point of their fall into each other—that he thinks very few other things will be able to match.</p>
<p>Perhaps they will make more together, someday. Generators that were actually meant to carry out their original purpose; ones that could be used to power his maze. They would bring the light and hope and change that Bruce was so very eager for, in the way that Bruce was expecting.</p>
<p>He casts a glance up at Bruce and thinks, adoringly, that they would both enjoy a continuation of their work.</p>
<p>Nearly three hours have passed alone in the lab before they prepare themselves to leave it behind. Jeremiah takes one final look at the generators on the ledges—lightless and lifeless for now, but only a few tweaks away from beautiful radiance—and, as if in afterthought, asks Bruce if they could go out for lunch while still in the city.</p>
<p>He’s never done that on their previous two excursions to the lab. He’s never wanted to linger aboveground with Gotham as it was, and their previous trips into the heart of the city have been absolutely singular in their purpose. Bruce looks somewhat surprised by the request, but he smiles softly after a beat—perhaps believing that Jeremiah was interested in beginning to reconnect to the place that he had been living underneath of for years—and promises that he’ll bring Jeremiah to one of his favourite spots.</p>
<p>While he atmosphere is welcoming and the food is good, none of that would matter at all if it were not for the way that Bruce is sitting across from him, close enough that if Jeremiah dared to reach out he could interlace their fingers, or brush their ankles together. Bruce had a way of enhancing everything merely by existing within the same space as it, to the point where Jeremiah is sure that even the most mundane things could become spectacular.</p>
<p>The world aboveground would not be so alluring if not for Bruce’s attachment to it. </p>
<p>Towards the end of their meal Jeremiah checks his messages while Bruce takes a call from Alfred, and finds one sent by Ecco half an hour earlier, asking for an additional hour or two before their return. </p>
<p>‘I’ve never put a bedframe together before. You’re lucky that I managed to carry the boxes for it in here by myself.’</p>
<p>Jeremiah’s lips twitch. He promises her another hour and a half, at best.</p>
<p>There is a park across from the restaurant that Bruce had chosen as their destination. It is full of bare-branched trees and absolutely nothing of worth to look at, but Bruce doesn’t seem to mind that Jeremiah asks that they sit down together for just a little while longer, even though the wind has a cutting edge. They settle on a bench, Bruce in patient silence and Jeremiah in concealed exhilaration, and Jeremiah looks from his vantage point and sees three buildings that will, someday soon, disappear from this view.</p>
<p>“Whenever I come aboveground, the sky is grey,” he finds himself saying. “I used to think that I’d just imagined that about Gotham weather, the perpetual gloominess.” </p>
<p>“It can be very dark in autumn and winter,” Bruce tells him, eyes fixed on something beyond the horizon. Jeremiah wonders if something is weighing heavily upon his mind. Jeremiah wonders if it has anything to do with the man whose very existence inside of Gotham was a threat to Bruce’s safety. Jeremiah’s hands curl into tight fists. “But spring will come before you know it, and there will be blue skies again.”</p>
<p>“I’d like to see that with you.” Jeremiah’s fingers twitch, restless. He thinks about what it would feel like to take hold of Bruce’s hands, and his curled fists loosen completely. “Springtime.” </p>
<p>“You will,” Bruce promises, and Jeremiah is sure that he shifts just the tiniest bit closer. </p>
<p>They linger in the park for long enough that Jeremiah’s ears become sore from the cold, but in the end it all works out for him, because Bruce doesn’t bat an eye at Jeremiah suggesting that he buy them something warm to drink for the ride home. Bruce stays in the car while Jeremiah heads into a nearby café, ordering two hot chocolates to go.</p>
<p>Into one he thoroughly stirs a fine powder.</p>
<p>He exits the café nearly vibrating out of his skin with excitement. He thinks of a sleepy-eyed Bruce amenably tucking himself into the passenger’s seat when they’re almost at Jeremiah’s bunker. He thinks of a fully slumbering Bruce, warm and comfortable and held in Jeremiah’s loving arms, and carrying him over the bunker’s threshold.</p>
<p>The drinks are near-scalding, though, and Bruce only takes one sip of his before setting it into a cupholder with a warning to Jeremiah that it might burn the roof of his mouth. A full five minutes of driving pass before he reaches for it again while at a red light, gently blowing into the lid and taking another small, cautious sip. Jeremiah is much too preoccupied with Bruce’s very slow progress to drink any of his own, though he keeps it clutched within his cold hands to give off the appearance that he is drinking whenever Bruce isn’t looking. They’re nearly halfway to his bunker by the time Bruce deems the hot chocolate a drinkable temperature and finally takes more than a single sip of it.</p>
<p>The sleeping pill won’t kick in in time to make any of this easy. </p>
<p>Dread and anxiety coil within Jeremiah’s twisting stomach. He cannot let Bruce leave him again, cannot let him stay aboveground when there is obviously so much that Jeremiah cannot yet protect him from when he is outside of Jeremiah’s domain. He cannot let Bruce drive away only to get himself hurt or worse; he couldn’t do that even if Bruce wasn’t also drugged. </p>
<p>But he had wanted for it to be an easy transition from above to below. Bruce would fall into a peaceful sleep. He would wake up groggy and confused, unaware of the steps that Jeremiah had taken to bring him underground peacefully. Bruce would listen to Jeremiah’s explanations, and perhaps he would be against Jeremiah’s decision at first, but he would come to understand in time that Jeremiah was only looking out for him. </p>
<p>Now, though, Bruce would not be asleep. Now, if Bruce did not come into the bunker willingly, Jeremiah would have to force him. Jeremiah’s chest is tight and his heart is aching at the thought of it, but he’ll do what he must; for Bruce, for himself, for their future. Even if it means that he will be a target for Bruce’s ire during the beginning of Bruce’s extended stay underground.</p>
<p>He has no other choice, not if he wants to make sure that Bruce stays safe.</p>
<p>His resolve firms as the bunker comes into view.</p>
<p>He has no other choice. </p>
<p>He makes an offer for Bruce to come inside even though he is sure that Bruce will not take it, not when he thinks that he’s been away from his home and his other responsibilities and the other people in his life for so long already. As expected, Bruce’s answer is a kindly-worded refusal.  </p>
<p>“Will you—” Jeremiah’s voice cracks, and he can feel himself go warm underneath the foundation and concealer and layers of setting spray that are the only things keeping Bruce unaware of how hard he’s flushing. “Will you walk me to my door?”</p>
<p>Bruce—kind, sweet, tender-hearted Bruce—nods, and perhaps it is just a trick of Jeremiah’s adoring gaze, but it almost appears as if he has the beginnings of a flush in his own cheeks. Jeremiah’s heart predictably starts to race even before they both get out of the car, Bruce leaving his keys in the ignition for what he thinks will be just a few moments away.</p>
<p>The walk to the bunker door is terribly short, barely more than a dozen steps, but Bruce dutifully escorts him for the entire thirty seconds of it. When Jeremiah turns as if to say goodbye without really meaning goodbye at all he wonders if—if he thought that Bruce were safe, if the incident from a few nights ago either hadn’t happened or he had remained unaware of it, if he wasn’t about to steal Bruce away against his wishes—he might have dared to dart in to press a kiss to Bruce’s cheek in parting before letting him go. </p>
<p>“I wish that you would come inside with me.” For Bruce to step in of his own free will would be sublime. Jeremiah will have to wait, though. So much of his current life was spent waiting; to prove that he was better than Jerome could ever be, to destroy the city as it was in order to create something better, to show Bruce all of the love and affection that he deserved. Jeremiah is a patient man, but he is admittedly growing tired of it.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry Jeremiah, but I really do need to go. I’ll text you when I get home, though,” Bruce offers gently. “To let you know that I made it safely.” </p>
<p>Jeremiah’s fingers twitch.</p>
<p>“Yes,” he agrees under his breath. “You’ll make it home safely.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah will make sure of it.</p>
<p>He reaches out and grabs Bruce’s wrist.</p>
<p>Bruce looks at him, eyebrows furrowing in bewilderment more than anything else, his guard not yet up. </p>
<p>“Is something wrong?”</p>
<p>Jeremiah opens his mouth to speak, but all the words get caught in his throat. There is too much to say, too much to explain, so much that he’s already left unsaid that he chokes upon things he ought to have confessed when he first realized the turn that his feelings were taking, so long ago that Jeremiah had had fuzzy, unpolished plans about changing Bruce for the better, too, before he’d realized that Bruce was perfect exactly as he was and Jeremiah wouldn’t be able to stand letting Scarecrow’s toxin anywhere near him. </p>
<p>His grip tightens and Bruce’s expression shifts, mouth pursing together, smile completely gone.</p>
<p>“Jeremiah.” He sounds more serious, now. Not unkind, but authoritative. “What’s going on?” There are no accusations, no demands to be let go. Not yet, at least.</p>
<p>“Bruce,” he finally manages, voice rasping. “I can’t—”</p>
<p>Can’t let you get hurt. Can’t bear to watch you go. Can’t stand the cold anymore. Can’t survive without you.</p>
<p>“Can’t what?” Bruce’s expression is pinched with concern.</p>
<p>“I can’t let you leave when it’s not safe up here,” tumbles out of his mouth.</p>
<p>Bruce is silent for a long moment, the subtle flickering of emotion on his face giving off the impression that he is unsure of how to react to such a declaration. </p>
<p>“I appreciate your concern, really.” Bruce tugs his wrist, once, but Jeremiah does not let go, and his expression starts to flatten. “But you don’t get to make those kinds of choices for me.” He moves quickly, wrenching himself out of Jeremiah’s grip. “I’ll text you when I get home.” Bruce turns to go, but there is not enough room between them for him to have any kind of significant head start.</p>
<p>This time, when Jeremiah grabs him, he is sure to hang on tighter. Arms wrapping around Bruce from behind; trying but in his haste not managing to lock Bruce’s arms against his sides. </p>
<p>Bruce’s reaction is immediate, instinctive.</p>
<p>He fights against Jeremiah’s hold, struggling to break free from the grasp of his arms, fists flailing and legs kicking in what is swiftly becoming panicked desperation once it becomes clear that Jeremiah is intent on hanging onto him for dear life. Jeremiah doesn’t dare loosen his hold, clinging to him just as desperately as Bruce is trying to get away. Words of comfort catch in his throat at the rising intensity of Bruce’s struggle as Jeremiah slowly draws them closer to the bunker door. It is not easy, Bruce is strong and almost-wild with a desire to free himself, and there is one terrifying moment where his heel strikes a solid, stinging kick against Jeremiah’s shin so hard that the pain weakens him enough that Bruce nearly manages to get away. Bruce kicks again, and again, and Jeremiah’s teeth clench together as he hangs on as hard as he can.</p>
<p>Then, as if summoned by his swirling, frantic thoughts, Jeremiah sees Ecco approaching. A determined expression is visible for the handful of moments before she pulls a mask over her face. Jeremiah has enough time to think to hold his breath. Bruce, who continues to fight and demand to be set free, doesn’t see her coming until she is already there with an aerosolizer directly in front of him and takes a deep breath of vapour before he can know better than to do so.</p>
<p>He coughs and hacks, as if to expel the vapour from his lungs, and he fights even harder than before, but it is too late. In another minute his movements become slower, weaker. </p>
<p>“Jeremiah,” his voice is soft, plaintive. It breaks Jeremiah’s heart. “I don’t… I don’t understand.”</p>
<p>“You will soon, Bruce,” Jeremiah vows, voice shaking. He means to say more, but Bruce has already gone limp by the time he opens his mouth to speak again.</p>
<p>Jeremiah rearranges Bruce in his arms, in the carry that he had imagined he would bring a gently slumbering Bruce into. It doesn’t feel as much like a victory as he would have liked, but it is done, now. There would be no turning back from it. </p>
<p>“Does he have his keys still on him?” Ecco asks as she unlocks the bunker door for him, swinging it open for Jeremiah to pass.</p>
<p>“No, he left them in the car.”</p>
<p>“His phone?”</p>
<p>“In his coat’s right-side pocket.”</p>
<p>Ecco digs into fabric to pull it out and tucks it inside of her own jacket. “I’ll deal with this, then. You get him settled in. It’s all ready for him.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah holds Bruce closer to his chest, and the clawing unease which had filled him up at Bruce’s attempts to flee begins to drift away.</p>
<p>Bruce would understand, once Jeremiah had the chance to properly explain.</p>
<p>They cross over the threshold together and, with a racing heart and a steadying breath, Jeremiah begins to descend. With each step he takes the light from the outside world dims, until the door above them fully shuts and locks, and the muted winter sunlight can no longer reach them. Down, down he goes, with his precious bundle held as closely as he is able to carry him. When Jeremiah’s feet leave the final step a soft, joyous laugh builds up in his throat.</p>
<p>Bruce is underground with him to stay, at long last, with no way to possibly get out without assistance. Jeremiah will use this special time together, before Gotham gets its new face, to explain so many things to Bruce, and to prove to him that they were meant to be together. </p>
<p>And to finally tell Bruce that Jeremiah loved him.</p>
<p>He walks through numerous hallways, passing the office, his bedroom, the library, and eventually turns into one of the multiple entrances to the maze, going down a specific path until he finally reaches the spot that Ecco had so faithfully been preparing for him this morning. </p>
<p>She really has done an excellent job with the secret room that had once been used as Jerome’s holding cell, considering what she’d had to work with. Jeremiah suspects that she might have begun gathering things for it even before he had sent his list, for it to have turned out so well in so short a time. </p>
<p>There is a soft burgundy rug laid out over the hard floor, the edges of it disappearing underneath the many other items that had been brought inside afterwards. There are impressionist art prints on large sheets of canvas draped over the walls to conceal the majority of their cold, harsh surface beneath dappled views of sunsets, water, and flowers. There are novels and puzzles, notebooks and coloured pens, crossword and sudoku booklets and whatever else Jeremiah could think of to give Bruce something to do while stuck inside, all sorted neatly inside of shelves that are pressed flush against the right side of the room. In the far-right corner stands a tall, ornamental lamp, already turned on and bringing a touch more warmth and light into the room. There is a mini fridge filled with bottles of water and snacks against the furthest wall. The fridge takes the additional task of being a bedside table, as there is simply no room left for one, and upon it there is a bouquet of fresh flowers, pink foxglove intermingling with red and white roses.</p>
<p>Taking up nearly half of the room’s space is a bed on the left side, just a small mattress and frame—Jeremiah suspects he’s too tall for it, not that there would be much room for him to stretch out beside Bruce as he slept—but the deeply coloured fabrics and piles of downy pillows make it look appealing enough. It is a modestly sized space and full to the brim, with only a narrow walkway separating the bed from everything else, but it has all the appearance of a cozy room. </p>
<p>Jeremiah gently lays Bruce down upon the bed and, in what is becoming a routine that he cannot seem to put an end to, he presses a lingering kiss into Bruce’s curls.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry if I frightened you,” he whispers earnestly. “Everything will make sense once you wake up, Bruce.” He lays a hand upon Bruce’s serene face, gazing upon him with the utmost reverence. “I promise.”</p>
<p>He rises and turns, taking the few steps needed to get out of the room, and the door slides into place behind him to turn the opening to the holding cell into just another extension of one of hundreds of hallways. Bruce will not have to be locked inside of there all of the time, of course, but it was best to keep him completely contained at the beginning, lest he end up running and getting himself lost in the maze for days until Jeremiah could track his erratic path. </p>
<p>For now, Bruce will sleep.</p>
<p>For now, Jeremiah will get to work in his office.</p>
<p>The footage from his security camera is easy enough to doctor, merely using the recording of the previous time Bruce had dropped him off after visiting the lab and changing the time-stamp. The cold weather means that he and Bruce had already been in their long jackets then, and his footage isn’t high definition enough for anyone to notice the small differences in their clothing. </p>
<p>Bruce drives onto screen. Jeremiah leaves the car, lingering for a few moments before he closes the passenger side door. He walks towards his bunker until he’s almost out of frame and turns back when noise alerts him to Bruce stepping out of the car. Bruce leans his weight against the roof of it, lingering in the same way that Jeremiah had been, adding those few extra moments before they parted ways. It’s difficult to tell on screen, with Bruce far enough away from the camera that his features are on the verge of becoming indistinct, but Jeremiah remembers that when Bruce was looking at him, he was smiling. </p>
<p>A spike of unease momentarily pierces him—the memory of how hard Bruce was trying to break free from his arms, the idea that it might be a while until Bruce is able to smile at him so softly again—but Jeremiah smothers it down. His plan to keep Bruce safe was reasonable, and well-calculated, and was for the best not only for Bruce but for them both, and Bruce would understand, in time. He would.</p>
<p>He will.</p>
<p>Jeremiah hopes that it will not take too long.</p>
<p>He makes a call to Bruce’s cell phone, hidden away, now, wherever Ecco had felt was best. He waits for a few minutes before he calls again, then again, and a fourth time to have it on his phone’s history. </p>
<p>And then he calls Wayne Manor directly.</p>
<p>Alfred answers after nearly a dozen rings, voice steady and calm, unaware that his entire world was about to shift beneath his feet. Jeremiah actually feels a small amount of sympathy for him, but only just. Alfred hadn’t been able to protect Bruce, either, and unlike Jeremiah he hadn’t been dealing with the constraints of living underground.</p>
<p>“Hello Mister Pennyworth, this is Jeremiah. Has Bruce returned home yet? I always ask him to text me when he gets back so that I know he’s arrived safely, but he hasn’t, and he’s not picking up my calls. I’m worried that something’s happened.”</p>
<p>There is a beat of silence, and then Alfred’s voice—sharper than before, tinged with paternal worry—asks how long it had been since Bruce had left the bunker.</p>
<p>“More than an hour.”</p>
<p>His lips twitch with a smile when he hears Alfred curse vehemently.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Emotional distress abounds. <br/>Also, I'm biting the bullet and saying: yeah this is going to be more than 10 chapters but I'm not quite sure how much over that I'm going to get. (Months ago I thought to myself, hey, I could do a Hades/Persephone vibes fic as a two-parter, maybe three. Sometimes it surprises me how little I know myself, haa.)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After hanging up on Alfred who will, after his own attempts to contact Bruce turn out to be unsuccessful, undoubtedly call Jim Gordon despite the fact that this will turn into a missing persons case and not a homicide, Jeremiah checks the video feed of the camera in the holding cell.</p>
<p>Bruce is laid out right where Jeremiah had left him, his chest gently rising and falling with slow, steady breaths. He looks comfortable and at peace, and as Jeremiah’s attention lingers upon him he finds himself wondering if Bruce is dreaming, and what he might be dreaming of. He cannot fixate his attention upon Bruce for too long, though, and does not dare to enter the holding cell again where he would be even more likely to get lost in Bruce and lose time.</p>
<p>He needs to prepare to have his home stormed by the GCPD for a third time.</p>
<p>Jeremiah would have been the first suspect if Bruce had simply fallen off of the face of the Earth immediately after spending so much time with him. He’ll likely be the first suspect now, too, with additional suspicion cast upon him not only for being the first one to notice that Bruce was not aboveground but also because of his unfortunate family ties. He expects that when the Detectives, most likely accompanied by Alfred whose presence will turn their arrival into a less formal inquest, arrive to bombard him with questions they’ll all be on their guard. Perhaps they will not outright say it, and perhaps they will feel guilty for even thinking it, but they won’t be able to dismiss the idea that <i>maybe he had been involved</i> from their minds. </p>
<p>And, while true, Jeremiah wasn’t about to get himself caught in the midst of any kind of lie. He would tell the truth, or at least parts of it, and would ruminate on the idea of Bruce truly being lost, of Bruce being taken somewhere far away where Jeremiah could not reach him, and he would allow that desperation to drive his performance and his demands that Bruce be found. He would even offer up his maze to be searched without any prompting. He’d pointedly lead them to a decoy cell first, one whose door did not fit in seamlessly with the surrounding walls, and tell them that that was where he had kept Jerome, all those months ago. If they wanted they could continue their search from there, but even if they did it would be a waste of time. </p>
<p>Bruce, who would be sleeping for hours, still, would not be awake to call for help and bring their awareness to the true holding cell.  </p>
<p>Ecco slips in shortly after the call, signalling with a sharp nod that everything had been taken care of with her usual attention to detail. Together they move the generator out of the office, hiding it away in an alcove that is little more than the size of a closet. Together they wait, until familiar figures begin to gather outside of the bunker.</p>
<p>“It’s showtime,” he murmurs as he unlocks the door. Behind him Ecco makes a muted sound of amusement before she goes to meet them at the bottom of the stairs.</p>
<p>Detectives Gordon and Bullock, along with Alfred, gather in his office not long after. Their lines of questioning are as Jeremiah predicted, with the Detectives being more pointed in their quest for answers and Alfred being the most noticeably troubled by the entire situation. Jim in particular seems taken aback that Bruce and Jeremiah had kept in contact enough that they’d spent any amount of time together after Jerome’s plot at the music festival had brought them into contact. He even questions why, and Jeremiah barely has to mention that he and Bruce were working together on a <i>secret</i> project before Alfred speaks up about how, if the Detectives wanted further details, they’d both be required to sign NDAs. Alfred also pointedly mentions that he would find such a thing to be a waste of time, considering that he was present to verify Jeremiah’s answers regarding that. The line of questioning regarding his and Bruce’s project is subsequently dropped.</p>
<p>Jeremiah goes on to tell them about their trip into the city that morning, shows them his falsified video footage of Bruce dropping him off, says with complete honesty that he had tried calling Bruce several times when it seemed as if he had forgotten to send Jeremiah his customary report on making it home safely. Alfred, who had last spoken to Bruce hours ago as he and Jeremiah were finishing up their meal, backs up everything that Jeremiah says without Jeremiah having to mention looking through security camera footage from Wayne Industries to prove that he and Bruce had even been in the building. </p>
<p>He’s being so helpful that Jeremiah feels that subtle pang of sympathy for him again. Not that the reappearance of such an emotion is enough to change any of his plans, but it’s almost…</p>
<p>Funny.</p>
<p>Jeremiah smothers that thought and allows his mind to drift back to the idea of Bruce falling off the face of the Earth without any trace, and without Jeremiah’s direct intervention. The idea that Bruce had been stolen away, but by someone else. </p>
<p>The concept is utterly horrifying. </p>
<p>Everything is going as Jeremiah expected and he twists his hands together, as if nervous, as he decides to divulge another truth that he hopes will help cast suspicion away from him. He mentions how a few nights ago Bruce had come to visit him, obviously upset about something. He mentions that Bruce had said he couldn’t tell him everything, and that he’d been so distressed that Jeremiah had left it alone. He mentions the name that Bruce had told him.</p>
<p>And things take a turn that he hadn’t anticipated.  </p>
<p>Alfred doesn’t look surprised, but both Detectives react to the name as if they are shocked to hear it, and Jim even sends a pointed look in Alfred’s direction that Jeremiah doesn’t know how to interpret.</p>
<p>“He told me… He told me that he was going to have to do something that he didn’t want to do,” Jeremiah admits lowly, eyes flickering over each face before him, trying to figure out what they know that he still doesn’t. “Something that he’d done before.”</p>
<p>Alfred shuts his eyes. Harvey mutters a curse under his breath. Jim takes a steadying breath as his posture becomes ramrod straight.</p>
<p>“Do you think it was him?” Spills from Jeremiah’s mouth before he can stop himself. He hadn’t wanted to linger on Ra’s for too long, planning to go forth with his idea of giving them free-reign to search the maze if they so pleased, if they felt they couldn’t trust him, but he can’t seem to put it behind him. “Do you think that he’s the reason why Bruce disappeared?”</p>
<p>Jim throws another look, much less subtle this time, in Alfred’s direction.</p>
<p>Jeremiah feels his heart clench.</p>
<p>“You’re not saying anything.” Anxiety begins creeping into his voice, even though he knows that Bruce is sheltered and safe and sleeping. Something awful must have happened before, something that he’s been kept in the dark about. What if he hadn’t done anything to make sure that Bruce was kept secure, and it had happened again? “Why aren’t you saying anything? You know who this man is, right? Who is he?”</p>
<p>“He’s dead,” Jim says, staring at Alfred’s face.</p>
<p>“We may have been incorrect on that account,” Alfred answers, slow but steady. “And I can’t say for certain whether he and his followers would have taken Bruce again. From what Bruce told me—”</p>
<p>Again.</p>
<p>“<i>Again?</i>” Jeremiah cuts Alfred off, genuine panic flooding his tone. Bruce, who Jeremiah loved more than anything, had been stolen away by the man who caused him so much suffering. Bruce, who made Jeremiah feel warm again after being numbed by the cold for what felt like countless years, might have been spirited away in the middle of the night if Jeremiah had done nothing to bring him into the safety of the underground. He perseverates on the idea of it, even though it distresses him so greatly that genuine tears begin to sting his eyes. “What do you mean, again? He was taken before? Where? For how long? What happened to him?”</p>
<p>“That story isn’t mine to share,” Alfred tells him, tone blunt from his own rising worry. Jeremiah’s breath hitches on a sudden sob. From behind him Ecco lays a firm hand on his shoulder, but her touch does nothing to comfort him.</p>
<p>Bruce is not here with him. Jeremiah feels so cold without him. What if Jeremiah hadn’t done anything and Bruce became lost forever? What if Jeremiah never saw him again? What if, what if, what if—</p>
<p>Alfred’s expression gentles somewhat, as if sensing just how real Jeremiah’s clawing worry was. “He’s only been out of contact for a few hours, now, not even long enough to officially declare him as missing. Sometimes Bruce gets pulled into situations that leave him momentarily stranded, but he always makes it home to me, in the end.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah’s voice shakes as he asks with unconcealed, miserable disbelief, “Then why did you call the Detectives right away?”</p>
<p>Alfred’s face hardens, then, and Jeremiah has a fleeting thought that this is a man who would bring down the world to get the boy that he thought of as his son back to him.</p>
<p>“Because sometimes Bruce gets pulled into situations that are dangerous, and I want to be sure that he always makes it home to me.”</p>
<p>“Please find him.” He does not direct his gaze to the Detectives, but to Alfred. If Bruce were really gone Jeremiah would be pleading just as desperately as he was now. If Bruce were really gone Jeremiah would slowly perish in the darkest of winters, because not even the maze would be able to save him from the devastation of losing his heart. He feels a tear roll down his cheek at the ever-persisting idea that that could have happened. Bruce had been taken before, and no one had been able to stop it from occurring, and Jeremiah has almost no information about what had happened during that time and how Bruce managed to come back. “Please, he’s my best friend.” And so, so much more than that. “I can’t—”</p>
<p>I can’t survive without him. </p>
<p>“I’ll find him,” Alfred says, and Jeremiah can tell that he means to do this by any means necessary. “Even if it’s that bloody lunatic that’s taken him.” He turns sharply, as if intent on getting started as soon as humanly possible, and the Detectives only manage a hurried goodbye before they follow in his determined footsteps.</p>
<p>Jeremiah’s chest is so tight that he can hardly breathe.</p>
<p>“You’ll have to let them out, Ecco,” he manages, one trembling hand reaching for the switch to open the secret entrance to his maze. “The doors to the aboveground are locked from both sides, now.” He pivots on his heel and doesn’t wait for an answer, sprinting all the way to the holding cell.</p>
<p>If Bruce had been taken, if Bruce were gone, if Bruce were in danger—</p>
<p>The door opens and Bruce is still resting inside, but that doesn’t immediately ease the fear that had overtaken Jeremiah as his mind began to fixate upon the idea of Bruce being taken away <i>again</i>. He collapses on his knees beside Bruce’s bed, grabs Bruce’s hands in his own, and heaves on unsteady breaths until the warmth of Bruce against him finally begins to settle his racing thoughts and calm his enduring terror. </p>
<p>Ecco approaches nearly forty minutes later, having politely given him a chance to pull himself together in private. She’d had a few other things purchased for Bruce’s stay waiting in her own car to be brought inside, just in case the Detectives began to search, and had taken the opportunity to bring them all in to be sorted through. </p>
<p>He leaves with her, but not before pressing dedicated kisses to the backs of Bruce’s hands.</p>
<p>“I promise that I’ll protect you,” he murmurs against soft skin. “I promise, Bruce.”</p>
<p>Now that Jeremiah had him, he wouldn’t allow anything to take Bruce away from him. </p>
<p>He follows Ecco to a storeroom that had once been filled with rolled sheets of paper diagrams and blueprints, and detailed 3D models of every project that he’d had a hand in designing. He’d gotten rid of all of them weeks ago, not wanting to cling to trifling past successes when his near-future had something so much greater in store for him. The room had sat bare since, until today.</p>
<p>Set up on the floor is a large two-tiered display which Ecco must have set up in the morning, with rows of sprouting plants set into each tier and long LED grow lights hovering above them to allow them to flourish indoors. The table that had once played host to multiple 1:100 and 1:300 scale models is now covered with brown paper-bags from the grocery store that Ecco favoured, as well as packages from clothing shops and boutiques. Jeremiah opens one package and is pleased by what he finds at the top, drawing it out to take a better look.</p>
<p>Bruce wore his blacks and greys so well, but Jeremiah was eager to introduce a little more colour into his wardrobe. Nothing so different that it would be jarring—mostly deep greens and blues, wine-reds, dark purples, with the addition of the occasional soft, muted piece or vivid accent piece—but just enough that Bruce had a variety of choices.</p>
<p>The blue, silky material of the shirt in his hands has the faintest sheen in the light, and Jeremiah has fleeting ideas of how someday, when he’s less pressed for time, he and Bruce might be able to coordinate outfits so that they match each other. </p>
<p>“Do you think he’ll like these?” He folds the shirt up and carefully tucks it back inside. </p>
<p>“Perhaps not all of them will be to his taste, but I’m sure he’ll be able to put together something that he enjoys wearing,” Ecco answers as Jeremiah moves on, eyeing the brown paper bags. An extra person underground meant twice as many groceries as before, but Jeremiah sadly didn’t know enough about what Bruce liked and disliked to say without a doubt what Ecco should buy or steer clear from, so he’d asked for a variety.</p>
<p>There is one item, though, that she seems to have bought with some kind of certainty that it would be enjoyed. Bruce and Ecco have barely exchanged greetings more than a handful of times, but Jeremiah suddenly finds himself wondering if she had learnt something about Bruce that he hadn’t had a chance to, and despite the fact that he knows Ecco has zero interest in Bruce he feels a spark of envy. </p>
<p>“Pomegranates,” he muses after a taking in the sight of the half-dozen, fist sized fruits. “I didn’t know that Bruce liked pomegranates.” He looks up at her, one eyebrow cocked inquisitively, mouth pressed into a firm line. </p>
<p>“I don’t know if he likes them, I just thought they were fitting,” Ecco tells him, a keen spark in her eyes as her lips tug into a brief smile. “Perhaps you could open one up and feed the arils to him by hand.”</p>
<p>“Do you think he would let me hand-feed him?” His heart races at the idea of Bruce taking anything from him like that. At the idea of Bruce’s teeth gently grazing against his fingertips. At the idea of Bruce kissing them. Licking them. Sucking them into his warm, wet mouth, his dark eyes fluttering shut and—</p>
<p>“Not right away, no,” Ecco says, breaking Jeremiah’s train of thought. “But soon enough.”</p>
<p>She gives him updates about his future hideaway as they sort through everything and set it into piles of what can be kept in the storeroom and what will need to be moved elsewhere. It is a place that he used to know well, which he had shut away many years ago.</p>
<p>The spot where the first team that he had hired to construct his maze had broken ground.</p>
<p>He had swapped through multiple companies in the years that it had taken to fully complete the maze, not wanting any singular person other than himself to know even a tenth of its true layout. He’d measured and planned each section precisely, and into the ground his team would dig, and they’d stop just before breaking through the wall of a completed section, and they would carry out their work not knowing the full scope of the project they were involved in, and when they were done Jeremiah constructed necessary connections and sealed their work from above before allowing the earth to resettle over the new structure, as if it had never been disturbed.</p>
<p>The place where the first team had broken ground, though, hadn’t been sealed quite as thoroughly as the other spots, as it was where Jeremiah stayed during the bulk of the time when he was waiting for the rest of his underground domain to be completed. Even now there was still a way in, if one knew where to look for it. It ran alongside the maze but was no longer directly connected to it, the old hallways turned to dead-ends, because Jeremiah hadn’t trusted that no one from the team wouldn’t sneak back inside after their work was done, and he hadn’t wanted to deal with anyone attempting to explore his space.</p>
<p>It was far enough from his office that the detonation of the generator wouldn’t touch it.</p>
<p>It was another underground bunker that could be his stronghold in the time between the destruction of one maze to the creation of the next. </p>
<p>“Have you added the particulars for my Plan D in the sealed anteroom since we last spoke?”</p>
<p>“You mean your <i>purge room?</i>” Ecco gives him a somewhat dry look, although Jeremiah had explained the ins and outs of why he might need a Plan D when it came to his brother’s followers very thoroughly. People mad enough to pledge themselves to Jerome could never be fully trusted, after all. If their loyalties could switch once, who was to say that they wouldn’t switch again? Lunatics and idiots were fickle, after all. “Yes. It’s all set up.”</p>
<p>“Wonderful.” He opens the last package, takes a look at the contents inside, and fumbles in his haste to close it back up again, cheeks burning beneath his makeup. “<i>Ecco.</i>”</p>
<p>“What?” She is, of course, completely unphased by his reaction. “He needs underwear, too, unless you want him going around with nothing on underneath?”</p>
<p>Jeremiah briefly freezes up, then barely manages to compose himself after the idea of Bruce wearing something especially for him while leaving himself bare underneath takes a moment to run rampant through his head. “It seems as if you might have gone to the wrong department for these.”</p>
<p>“Nonsense. Anyone can have fancy underthings, these are even marketed as gender-neutral.” Ecco casts a sly glance in his direction. “If you don’t want to handle them I could sort them out.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah pulls the package closer to himself. “I can handle them. I was just… Surprised.”</p>
<p>“Very well, then.” She gathers the first batch of things that will require a place in his fridge and freezer. “You should check on the footage of Bruce soon to see if he’s woken up yet, I can’t imagine he’ll be asleep too much longer.”</p>
<p>“I told you this morning that I was planning on giving him something.” Jeremiah traces his fingers over silky black fabric. “And I did, it just didn’t kick in before we arrived home, hence you having to rush in and save the day.”</p>
<p>“Well, he’ll probably be disoriented when he wakes up then, considering that he’s been double-dosed. I’m not sure how the drugs might interact with each other, or if the duration of effect of what you’ve given him might have extended or shortened because of what I gave him. Still, don’t approach him alone when he does start to stir. I’ll be his escort to make sure that his needs outside of the holding cell are met, and I’ll keep an eye on him whenever he’s with you, at least until it seems as if he’s settled in.”</p>
<p>“I don’t see why that’s necessary,” Jeremiah mutters, not exactly keen on the idea of his moments spent with Bruce suddenly being chaperoned, as if them being alone together was a scandalous act. “He might be a little upset at first, but Bruce is smart, and he’ll see reason in due time. I can take care of him myself.”</p>
<p>“With me the situation will feel more impersonal,” Ecco says, making her way out the door. “With you, I imagine his temper may initially flare up more than you might be expecting.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah stays silent as he finishes sorting out the clothes, and then he retreats back to his office where he waits, attention flicking between drafting out equations and diagrams and checking on a screen, at least until Bruce’s tossing and turning seems to be happening with more frequency. </p>
<p>He calls Ecco back into the office, anticipation coiling under his skin for the moment where Bruce will open his eyes and look around and see the space that Jeremiah had ordered set up especially for him. He watches, and he waits, and after a while Bruce slowly raises a hand up to his temple, briefly grimacing as if struck by a headache. The sound of his ensuing sigh is loud enough for the microphone in the room to catch. Then his eyelids flicker, lashes parting a sliver and closing several times in succession before they finally open halfway and stay there, his unfocused gaze staring up at the ceiling. </p>
<p>“Maybe he’s forgotten exactly what happened,” Jeremiah muses aloud, more out of hope than actual belief. Behind his shoulder Ecco makes a disbelieving sound. “But I suppose that would be too much luck in one day.”</p>
<p>Bruce is still for several long moments; eyes half-shut, body lax, expression soft.</p>
<p>And then, in the span of a second, he rocks into a sitting posture, nearly fumbling off of the bed in his haste. His eyes dart around, wide and searching, and they settle upon the one wall that has nothing pressed up against it. Bruce surges to his feet then and stumbles; unsteady, dizzy, disoriented.</p>
<p>“Jeremiah?” His voice is soft, plaintive, even through the speaker. He steps forward cautiously, hands reaching out to the wall, trying to find some sort of latch or handle. He soon realizes that there are none. “Jeremiah?” His voice is steadier, his expression is shifting. He’s trembling, Jeremiah can see his shoulders beginning to shake, but he’s also starting to curl his hands into fists. </p>
<p>Jeremiah’s heart aches.</p>
<p>Then Bruce catches sight of the camera lens, and that is when everything truly goes sour.</p>
<p>He starts to yell, Jeremiah’s name and curses and demands to be let out, and he beats his fists against the wall even though he must realize that there’s no possible way for him to break free. Jeremiah can feel the air behind him shift as Ecco whirls around immediately, intent on putting a stop to this behaviour before Bruce hurt himself. Jeremiah feels frozen, watching Bruce so recklessly trying to free himself with so little regard for the toil it must be putting on his body, hitting and scratching at a wall that will not move without Jeremiah or Ecco making it do so. He does slow to a stop, eventually, and he begins to shake even more noticeably.</p>
<p>“Jeremiah, please.” His voice cracks, and he rests his forehead against the wall. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”</p>
<p>And that is when Jeremiah finally finds the strength to go to him, as he should have done at the exact same time as Ecco. </p>
<p>He sprints, heart in his throat, down the path to the holding cell. Ecco has had minutes of a head start on him, and must have already opened the door without him, because Jeremiah can hear Bruce’s loud accusation of, “You drugged me,” even before he makes the final turn.</p>
<p>Ecco’s ensuing remark of, “You could have come in willingly,” is followed by the sounds of a scuffle.</p>
<p>“Ecco,” he calls as he finally comes into view of them, Bruce already locked in a hold in Ecco’s arms. “Don’t hurt him!”</p>
<p>“I’m not hurting him, boss.” Even she seems to be having some difficulty keeping Bruce from flailing out of her grip. Bruce goes limp, though, at the sound of Jeremiah’s voice. </p>
<p>He’s breathing heavily, and his cheeks are flushed from both anger and exertion. His eyes have a teary sheen to them which is almost enough to make Jeremiah regret doing what had to be done, but if he hadn’t done it Bruce might have been stolen away by <i>someone else</i>, and Jeremiah would have felt sharp, sorrowful regret for not bringing him underground much more than he feels troubled that he’d had to bring Bruce down unwillingly. </p>
<p>“Jeremiah.” His voice is soft again, completely free of the anger he’d been displaying in the holding cell. “Jeremiah.” Bruce tries to reach out for him with his red, raw hands, but Ecco is keeping his arms pinned to his sides. Jeremiah feels a very brief flare of his own temper that she is holding Bruce back from him. “I don’t know what’s happening, but if you let me go now I promise that I won’t tell anyone about this. Everything can stay the same,” he vows, voice starting to quake, breaths becoming shallow and fast. “You and me, and the generators. I won’t hold this against you, I promise. Please.”</p>
<p>Things would never go back to the way that they used to be, now, but that didn’t mean that they would become worse.</p>
<p>Good things were on the horizon for the both of them.</p>
<p>In Jeremiah’s new maze they’d be <i>safe</i> and <i>together</i>, and that was what mattered more than anything.</p>
<p>“I can’t let you go, Bruce,” he says as gently as he is able as he inches forward to close the distance between them. He can feel his own hands beginning to shake, distress taking hold in his chest at the way that Bruce’s hopeful, imploring expression shatters. Jeremiah absolutely hates to see him upset. “It’s not safe for you aboveground, we both know that it’s not, so you’re going to stay down here with me until I can make it safe. Bruce, you don’t understand yet, because I never told you, but I couldn’t watch you—”</p>
<p>“I can’t stay down here. You can’t just—just <i>imprison me</i> against my will!” There’s fire in his voice, in his eyes. Bruce has never spoken to Jeremiah like this before, has never looked at Jeremiah like this before. Jeremiah’s chest becomes uncomfortably tight despite the fact that he knows that what he did was for the best, and that Bruce would eventually come to realize it, too. </p>
<p>“You can, Bruce, and it’s not supposed to be an imprisonment. That room is just another safety-measure for you, so that you don’t run off and get lost in the maze. Everything is going to be fine, you’ll see. I’m going to—”</p>
<p>“I trusted you,” Bruce cuts him off, sounding absolutely agonized. “I wanted to tell you things that I’d—” His breath hitches, his eyes become glossier. “—that I’d never told anyone. I felt <i>safe</i> with you.”</p>
<p>“You are safe with me.” Jeremiah begins to reach out to him, despite the pointed look that Ecco is sending him from beyond Bruce’s shoulder. Bruce is hurting, and Jeremiah longs to comfort him. Bruce’s anguish is even more excruciating than his anger. “You’re safest when you’re with me. All I want is for you to be safe, Bruce.” His fingers gently brush against Bruce’s, meaning to interlock with them, but Bruce’s hand flinches away from his touch. “Bruce, I’m sorry, I know this situation isn’t exactly ideal—”</p>
<p>“Ideal,” he interrupts roughly, anger overtaking his expression as he once again begins to thrash in Ecco’s grip. “<i>Ideal?</i> Jeremiah, I have—I have had it with people who I’ve trusted using or misleading me, or not taking my own thoughts and feelings into consideration. I’ve had enough of letting people get close only to have it backfire on me.” His legs begin to kick, and his eyes clench shut, as if he cannot even bare to look at Jeremiah any longer. “Let me out! Let me out right now!”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, Bruce. I can’t.”</p>
<p>“You mean you won’t. You could, but <i>you won’t</i>.”</p>
<p>“No. Bruce, please listen to me—”</p>
<p>But it’s obvious from the way he begins to yell that he’s done with listening for the day.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>We're moving towards some canon-divergence beyond the kidnapping, because Jeremiah is thankfully capable of using <i>some</i> of his critical thinking skills when it comes to Bruce. Still, Jeremiah has a lot to make up for.</p><p>My lovely friend lunetteart did a non-spoiler-y commission for me for this work which you can find here: https://lunetteart.tumblr.com/post/642122033721999360/bruce-has-lived-his-life-as-a-little-prince-but<br/>(See, the pain will actually stop eventually, I promise.)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had taken a few hours for Bruce to calm down to the point where Ecco felt that he wouldn’t, as she put it, attempt to throttle Jeremiah the moment that he saw him again. Ecco had taken him on a long walk through the maze to stretch his legs and get rid of some of the boundless energy that he undoubtedly was planning on using to make an escape, and Jeremiah had watched their progress from screens in the office whenever they walked through a corridor with a camera, heartsick at the knowledge that Bruce had parted ways with him with so much anger carried inside of his chest.  </p><p>Ecco walked with him and watched him, and allowed him a very brief moment alone to use the facilities, though she’d put the toe of her shoe between the door and the frame so that Bruce wouldn’t have an opportunity to lock himself inside. Then she had led him back to the holding cell, and Bruce’s feet began to shuffle, and his shoulders began to tense.</p><p>He went inside without a fight, but only because Ecco mentioned drugging him again if he tried to run away. </p><p>If there was one very, very small thing that Jeremiah could be happy about in the aftermath of Bruce’s awakening, it was that he fully believed that it was Ecco alone that had drugged him. </p><p>But that was only one very small thing. </p><p>The door of the holding cell shuts, and once it is closed Bruce sends an absolutely furious look to the camera. Jeremiah mutes the feed before Bruce can say anything and watches as Bruce rips a page from a book, trying and failing to cover up the lens without anything to make the paper adhere to the wall. </p><p>He turns the feed off shortly after. </p><p>He ends up sitting outside of the holding cell in the middle of the night, his back pressed against the door, just as he had done with his bedroom only one night ago. Bruce is close, yet still not close enough. But Bruce will stay underground with him, now, and tomorrow would be a new day, and once Bruce allowed Jeremiah to explain himself things would begin to change for the better. </p><p>The morning would be a fresh start. A new beginning. <i>Their</i> new beginning. </p><p>But the night must pass, first, and it is long and cold and lonely. </p><p>Jeremiah wakes up feeling exhausted, but he refuses to allow that to interfere with his preparations for the day. He showers and shaves and applies his cosmetics with even more care than usual. He slips in his contacts and slides on his glasses and picks out a suit that Bruce had complimented once before, mentioning that the colour suited him. Fully dressed and ready for the day, he leaves his room to find Ecco already in the kitchen, in the middle of cutting open a pomegranate. </p><p>“I can take it from here,” he says, slipping into place beside her, pulse thrumming, eager to get to work. “Could you let Bruce out so that he can get washed and dressed? He can use the shower in my room.” He didn’t have the name of the product that left Bruce’s curls smelling faintly sweet, but perhaps if he asked nicely Bruce would impart that information onto him so that Ecco could go out and buy it. Until then, though, Bruce would use whatever Jeremiah had, and smell of him instead. </p><p>There was something provocative about the idea of Bruce smelling like Jeremiah, like he <i>belonged</i> to Jeremiah, even though Jeremiah really did love him exactly as he was.</p><p>“Sure thing, boss.” </p><p>Ecco steps out of the kitchen and Jeremiah opens his pantry and fridge, both absolutely full to the brim, and thinks about the myriad of options before him. Batter for pancakes and eggs for omelets and thickly cut bread for French toast. A little bit of everything, to make sure that he could tempt Bruce’s appetite. A little bit of everything, so that Bruce could see how much effort Jeremiah <i>wanted</i> to put into something even as simple as a shared breakfast. Jeremiah could provide for him and protect him and love him with a determination and a strength that no one else could ever reach. Jeremiah would prove it more and more every day, until there was no doubt in Bruce’s head that Jeremiah really did only want the best for him.</p><p>But he’s only just begun to mix the wet ingredients into the dry for his pancake batter when Bruce and Ecco walk into the kitchen. </p><p>Bruce is still wearing his clothes from the past two days, and his puffy eyes are rimmed in pink and bloodshot, as if he’d spent the entire night crying. </p><p>It takes all of the self-control that Jeremiah possesses not to drop the bowl and rush towards him, to hold Bruce’s face in his hands and promise that everything will be okay. Bruce had flinched away from his touch the last time that Jeremiah had reached out to him. Jeremiah <i>loves</i> Bruce and wants to <i>show</i> Bruce how much he loves him, but he has to be careful. The night had been fraught with suffering on both sides, but Bruce was here to stay, now, and he was finally safe from the threat of Ra’s al Ghul and the Maniax and whatever other wickedness he had previously faced without Jeremiah. Jeremiah has time. He doesn’t have to rush. So instead of crowding into Bruce’s space Jeremiah stays put, though his mixing noticeably falters before coming to a total stop.</p><p>“Good morning, Bruce,” he greets gently. </p><p>Had Bruce been crying last night while Jeremiah’s back was pressed against the door that had separated them from each other? Would Bruce have cried harder if Jeremiah had gone in to see him with the intent to offer him comfort?</p><p>Bruce stares at him, defiant despite his painfully obvious grief, and doesn’t say anything back.</p><p>“He didn’t want to shower, or to change.” Ecco eventually speaks up, grabbing the pomegranate that she had begun cutting into and splitting it open with her hands. “He doesn’t want breakfast, either.”</p><p>“I can speak for myself,” Bruce mutters in her general direction.</p><p>“Can you?” Ecco thankfully sounds more fondly disbelieving than antagonizing. Jeremiah doesn’t suspect that Bruce would respond particularly well to being provoked right now. “You haven’t even said good morning yet.”</p><p>Bruce’s gaze locks on the floor, his hands clenched at his sides.</p><p>“Good morning, Jeremiah,” he eventually grits out. “How long have you been planning to abduct me? It seems as if you’ve put a lot of thought into it.” His shoulders curl forward and his arms cross over himself, an undeniably defensive posture. “Ecco showed me my closet this morning.”</p><p>There’s no right answer to that, not when Bruce’s hackles are so obviously raised already, and not when the true answer is practically unbelievable, considering how much work Ecco had been able to do while he and Bruce were in the city-center together. </p><p>“Why don’t you sit down?” Jeremiah prompts instead, keeping his voice soft. “Even if you’re not hungry I could make you something to drink. Coffee? Hot cocoa?” He doesn’t mention tea, fearful that Bruce might begin to connect the dots now that his trust in Jeremiah was shaken. “Even just a glass of orange juice would be better than nothing.”</p><p>“I’m fine. Thank you,” Bruce responds tersely, though he does sit down at Jeremiah’s kitchen table. Just yesterday they had shared smiles and words with each other so freely in this same room, and now Bruce can hardly stand to look at him. It’s enough to make Jeremiah feel sick.</p><p>He opens his mouth to speak, to offer explanations, but Ecco catches his eyes and discreetly shakes her head. Jeremiah feels his face crumple and his heart twinge painfully, but at least Bruce wasn’t desperately yelling again. That was, in a way, progress. He continues with the batter, even though his excitement is all but gone now that Bruce is here and ignoring him.  </p><p>Meanwhile Ecco slides the sections of pomegranate in front of Bruce, though he stares down at the red seeds caught in white pulp and makes no move to try it. Bruce stays silent though everything, even as Jeremiah cooks, even as Jeremiah and Ecco eat, even as Ecco begins to clear the dishes from the table, finally taking Bruce’s untouched fruit away from him. Bruce is quiet and he’s not looking at Jeremiah and Jeremiah cannot bear the weight of the silence crushing him from all sides.</p><p>“Bruce,” he begins, voice on the verge of trembling.</p><p>“Can I go back to my cell now?” Bruce directs the question at Ecco. It’s an undoubtedly calculated move, one which leaves Jeremiah feeling raw. “I’d like to be alone.”</p><p>Ecco looks to him for confirmation and Jeremiah can see Bruce go tense with the knowledge that, in the end, Jeremiah was the one who controlled whether he was allowed to be alone or not.</p><p>Jeremiah doesn’t want to be without him. Doesn’t want to force him any more than he already has. Doesn’t want Bruce to hold their currently skewed power dynamic against him when really what Jeremiah wanted was for them to be partners, equals, paired Sovereign. Doesn’t want to watch him go even if he can no longer go aboveground. Doesn’t want Bruce to be unhappy.</p><p>He swallows heavily.</p><p>“I’ll see you later, then,” he says, and Bruce doesn’t even look at him before he stands and turns, not waiting to make sure Ecco is ready to come with him before walking out.</p><p>Jeremiah can see his shoulders begin to tremble.</p><p>When he checks the holding cell’s camera feed from his office he finds Bruce attempting to muffle uncontrollable sobs into a pillow and Jeremiah feels miserable, aching tears spring into his own eyes. He whips the nearest object, Jerome’s diary, against a wall as his emotions surge. Then he folds, dropping to the floor beside his desk and tucking his head into his knees, muffling sobs of his own as the thawed heart in his chest breaks while the heart that he’s separated from weeps.</p><p>Bruce doesn’t come to the kitchen for lunch, or for dinner, merely using the moments where Ecco is free to walk him to be escorted to the bathroom before going back to the holding cell again. It’s only the first whole day of Bruce being underground, and he had known that it wouldn’t all fall into place easily, but Jeremiah doesn’t know if he can handle many more days feeling this wretched. </p><p>“He’s gone on hunger strike,” he murmurs in the evening, utterly woebegone. “Maybe I shouldn’t have decided to keep him locked inside of the holding cell. Maybe, if I give him more freedom, he’ll acclimatize faster. It’s not as if he can get out even if he makes it to one of the doors. I’ll tell him that they’re locked from the inside.”</p><p>“But he might still run into the maze thinking that there could be some other way for him to get out, or thinking that it will buy him time if people come searching for him,” Ecco tells him, her own voice gentling in response to his sorry state. “The further into the maze, the patchier the camera coverage is—” Because Jeremiah had always cared more about people being close to the hub of his bunker rather than being lost far away from it. “—so even with us coordinating a search it could take us up to a week to find him if he ran off. And we knew that this might happen, him not wanting to eat with you. That’s why he has food in his room. Give him some time, Jeremiah. He’s not going anywhere.”</p><p>Jeremiah knows that he’s not, but that doesn’t make it any easier. </p><p>He spends the night curled up outside of the holding cell again.</p><p>The early morning is made wretched with another visit from Detective Gordon, which even before he comes inside Jeremiah takes to mean that Bruce has been officially declared missing and that his good friend Jim is on the case, despite not being otherwise involved in missing persons cases. Jeremiah honestly finds it irritating that a person with a history of being a homicide Detective would fumble in to steal the work of someone who was undoubtedly better qualified. What if Bruce really was missing again, and someone who had the knowledge and skillset to find him had been pushed off the case because Jim had to get himself involved? They’d never find him.</p><p>Jeremiah is angry and <i>miserable</i>, even though Jim being the one to look into things only plays to his advantage. He even has a sickly look, because he hadn’t been as thorough when applying his cosmetics after waking. Jim seems to sense his low mood as soon as he walks into the office, and while that plays into his advantage too Jeremiah can’t stand that <i>Jim Gordon</i>—whose lifeline is unknowingly stretched out between Jeremiah’s hands, ready to be cut short—is seeing him like this.</p><p>The questions he asks are all the same as the ones previous, as if he hadn’t been paying attention the first time or, most likely, had come into Jeremiah’s home in a poor attempt to catch him in some kind of lie. Before he leaves he settles a card with his cell number on Jeremiah’s desk, asking him to call if he remembers anything else even if they’re little, seemingly insignificant details.</p><p>Jeremiah thinks he would be much more likely to call Alfred, if he actually wanted Bruce to be found.</p><p>“I feel as though I gave you a big enough detail when I mentioned the name Ra’s al Ghul and everyone in the room except for me knew who he was,” he mutters, still bitter. “Especially considering that he’d apparently <i>taken Bruce before</i>.”</p><p>Jim’s face twitches. Jeremiah doesn’t care about him enough to waste the energy trying to decipher what it means. </p><p>“We’re working on that,” he stiltedly offers, perhaps ashamed of his own poor progress in tracking Ra’s down. </p><p>Not hard enough, Jeremiah thinks with an inward sneer. He’ll wipe Ra’s al Ghul off the face of the Earth himself to make sure that he never has the opportunity to even get within eyesight of Bruce again. </p><p>Jim leaves and Jeremiah languishes in his office, not at all in the mood to eat if Bruce were going hungry, not in the mood to do anything if Bruce wanted to be kept away from him so badly that he’d choose to stay within the holding cell when he could instead be outside of it with Jeremiah. If Jeremiah were still frozen in the shadows and numb with indifference to others, if Bruce wasn’t his true heart, then he has no doubt that such things would be trivial bumps in the road. But Bruce had shown him the warmth and light that he’d been missing out on, and Bruce had charmingly and unwittingly become what Jeremiah cared about most in the world, and it’s—</p><p>—it’s almost enough to make him rethink some of the elements of his secret plan which he <i>knows</i> will hurt Bruce profoundly, even if the sharp ache will only be temporary, because he doesn’t think that he can <i>bear</i> to hurt Bruce much more than he already has; even if it would all be worth it in the end, even if progress required sacrifice, even if his maze would keep them safe and together in the way that they were meant to be. </p><p>What if Bruce finally started accepting that Jeremiah’s removal of him from the aboveground was a necessity and an act of love, only for Jeremiah to willfully cause him more pain?</p><p>Jeremiah runs a hand into his hair and hovers over Jerome’s diary, not having to open the pages to know every sick little idea that his brother had written inside of it because they were all in Jeremiah’s head, now. Foolish little schemes that Jerome would have never been able to carry out because he was far too crazy. Foolish little schemes that Jeremiah would have no problem with carrying out sanely, except for every single one that involved Bruce in any way. Those had always been off limits. Bruce had always been off limits. Not even to prove himself to the Maniax would Jeremiah do anything to him which had been suggested in Jerome’s messy printing. Even his own brief, skittering plan to change Bruce—to kidnap his butler, to expose him to Scarecrow’s toxin, to make him experience the kind of fear that Jeremiah had felt after inhaling purple vapour, to have him survive that trial by fire so that he could also become stronger and better—had been short-lived.</p><p>He stares down at Jerome’s diary, a frown tugging at his lips.</p><p>He has much to think about.</p><p>Ecco finds him in the midst of jotting down notes and he freezes at her arrival, wondering if it would bring good tidings or bad. He looks up at her, wordless and expectant, and she slides into a chair opposite his desk.</p><p>“We went on another walk this morning,” she reports. “And he finally showered and changed out of his old clothes. I brought him into the kitchen even though he said he wasn’t hungry and made sure he at least drank some water. He seemed surprised that you weren’t there, although he didn’t say anything about it.”</p><p>“Do you think he’s ready to listen to me?” Already his mind is flickering with new ideas, the plan for the maze was concrete and could not be changed, but perhaps there were other things which could use some tweaking, entirely for Bruce’s benefit. “I really did do this because I love him. Because I want him to be safe, with me.”</p><p>“He didn’t seem as angry this morning, or as sad. His eyes weren’t red from crying, at least.”</p><p>“I think I’ll go to him. Alone.” Ecco frowns at his suggestion, but Jeremiah will not falter. Without Ecco there was a bit of risk, but without Ecco he and Bruce at least had the appearance of being on more even ground. It wasn’t automatically two against one if Ecco was out of the picture. It was just a conversation. Them alone. Like they were used to. Maybe, if things went well, Jeremiah could offer to bring Bruce into the office to work on the generator together, which was still hidden away in the alcove that he and Ecco had moved it into to keep it out of sight when people from above came below with questions. “You can stand nearby if you want, but I don’t want him to be able to see you.”</p><p>“If you’re so set on this then I won’t try to convince you otherwise,” Ecco tells him. “But be careful. I’ll watch the camera feed from here, and I’ll call if he looks like he’s braced by the door and ready to make a break for it when you step inside. I’ll be just around the corner, afterwards. Yell if you need me.”</p><p>He nods and immediately leaves the office, not bothering to waste time with slipping into his room to fix his single layer of imperfect makeup or brush his hair. He’s spent too much time away from Bruce already, and he can hardly endure the hardship of keeping his distance. If Bruce promises that he won’t run off into the maze, Jeremiah will keep the door to the holding cell open. As long as Bruce was safe, Jeremiah wouldn’t have to keep him confined in the room that Bruce likely only saw as a prison and not the cozy space that Jeremiah had wanted to turn it into. </p><p>Jeremiah pauses in front of the holding cell. Ecco doesn’t call to tell him that Bruce looks agitated or ready to try and run, so with a steadying breath he opens it up.</p><p>Bruce is sitting cross-legged on his bed. His dark curls have the shine of freshly-washed hair and look even softer than usual. He’s wearing a short-sleeved button down in a deep blue, and black pants with a very faint, silvery vertical stripe. His feet are bare, as if he really does feel comfortable and at home here, and Jeremiah feels a flare of tentative hope because held in Bruce’s hands is the bouquet of flowers, and his eyes are steadily fixed upon them. The hope begins to fade, though, when Jeremiah notices the number of petals scattered in front of Bruce on the bed, too many to be natural with the blooms still so fresh. </p><p>One by one, Bruce is plucking the petals off of the flowers.</p><p>Jeremiah’s eyes dart away, chest strangely tight even though it is such a small act of opposition—the only act of resistance that Bruce is currently capable of—to destroy something that Jeremiah had gifted him with only the utmost feelings of love in his heart. That is how he comes to see something that makes him feel even worse. </p><p>There are several empty water bottles lined up on the top of the mini fridge, but nothing else inside of it has been touched. </p><p>“You haven’t eaten anything yet.” Jeremiah is hit with a wave of worry that is so common, when it comes to Bruce. “It’s been more than a day since we were outside together.” It’s been over forty hours since they shared a meal in the city-center. </p><p>Bruce doesn’t respond, and his eyes stay fixed upon his steadily moving hand as he plucks the petals from the flowers that had been left for him, until the stems become bare. A growing sea of scattered red, white, and pink lays before him, lovely in the moment, but soon the petals would begin to whither. Like flowers denied light. Like a song-bird trapped in a cage. Like Bruce stuck underground when all that he had ever known was the world above. </p><p>Jeremiah swallows heavily. The sharp cold of Bruce’s silence is so much worse than the raging heat of his temper. </p><p>“Please, Bruce, you have to eat something.” He steps further into the room, closer to Bruce. Bruce’s eyes do not stray from the work of his hands. “You’ll waste away.”</p><p>“Will you let me go if I eat?”</p><p>Bruce’s voice is flat, but Jeremiah is happy that he’s at least speaking to him again, even though Jeremiah knows that he cannot give the answer that Bruce wants to hear. </p><p>“I can’t, Bruce. And I know that you think it’s because I could but won’t, but I swear Bruce, I swear that’s not it. I can’t.” Jeremiah lowers himself to his knees before Bruce, beseeching. Begging him to understand in the same fervent way he’d thought of begging Bruce to stay underground with him. “I could explain, if you’ll listen to me.”</p><p>“I don’t know if I can trust anything from you. Not your words, or whatever else you offer me. Not anymore.”</p><p>“Bruce, please…”</p><p>Thoughts flicker inside of his head, practiced half-confessions and half-fabrications. The way he would bring Jerome up when the first test of the generator coincided with the Maniax beginning to run rampant again. A special trap laid just for him, the diary that he’d gone over with a fine-toothed comb, seeing Jerome every time he closed his eyes. He’d played it out in his head so many times, each new version becoming closer and closer to what the final performance would be, because he’d become more and more familiar with the things he should say to Bruce and the things that he shouldn’t. Bruce—kind, valiant, perfect Bruce—would offer to take him to the cemetery so that he could prove to Jeremiah that there was nothing for him to fear, not knowing that Jerome had been dug up on Jeremiah’s orders. Not knowing that Jeremiah was merely putting on a show until he finally revealed himself.</p><p>“I have… I have things I need to tell you.” He’s starting to tremble, and his heart is racing. His eyes drop to stare no longer at Bruce’s face, but at the sea of petals, and distantly he realizes that he’s afraid, absolutely terrified of misstepping. Plans that had seemed so ingenious even as little as half a week ago are now all up for reassessment.</p><p>He could have stirred up the Maniax early and incriminated them in an attack so that Bruce would have come underground willingly, but that would be another lie to admit to.</p><p>He could speak of Jerome’s trap and go along with the same conversation that had played out in his mind so many times, but that would be another lie to admit to.</p><p>“I have things I need to tell you,” he repeats, and his voice starts to shake. “Not an explanation, not this time.” If Jeremiah tread carefully, then maybe Bruce would actually be willing to hear him out afterwards. “Some of them are about… Are about Jerome.”</p><p>The soft sound of tearing petals stops. Bruce is listening to him. Jeremiah can’t mess this up. Not now.</p><p>“Something happened,” he admits, not even knowing where to begin because he’s kept it a secret from Bruce since the very beginning. How could he have thought that he’d be able to bare all of the truth coming out to Bruce at once? How could he have thought it would be a good idea, especially when as he was refining his plan he’d come to realize the breathtaking truth that Bruce was his heart of hearts?</p><p>“Jeremiah.” A trace of blessed warmth has replaced the freezing ire of Bruce’s tone, and although it is faint Jeremiah could weep, he’s so happy to hear Bruce speak to him like this again. “He’s dead, I promise that he’s dead. If something happened, it wasn’t him. Is he why you were saying that it wasn’t safe for me aboveground?” Jeremiah stays quiet, and Bruce only pauses for a few moments before he carefully fills the silence. “I realize that, all things considered, him dying a second time might not seem like a true end to things, but he’s not going to come back again.”</p><p>“I’m not worried that he’s come back.” There, a truth in place of the lie that Jeremiah had been actively planning to tell for weeks. “But something did happen, Bruce. After I came home from the music festival.”</p><p>Above him Bruce is silent. Jeremiah’s trembling fingers reach up onto the bed, sliding into silky petals and waiting, desperate with the hope that Bruce will reach out to touch his hands in order to offer him comfort.</p><p>“He left a trap just for me,” he admits softly. “A special gas, and a special message.”</p><p>
  <i>Burn it all down, brother. Burn it all down.</i>
</p><p>But Jeremiah didn’t mean to leave the city as a pile of ash. He was a builder. A creator. He wasn’t like Jerome, who only knew how to destroy. </p><p>Even not looking at him, even not touching him, he can tell that Bruce has begun to tense.</p><p>“Jeremiah… What did he do to you?”</p><p>“Nothing, nothing, I swear!” His hands clench in the petals, crushing everything within his reach. “I know what you must be thinking, but it didn’t do anything to my mind. Maybe to other things.” He saw so much more clearly, now, in more than one way, and he’s steadily become used to the sight of his unconcealed features. “But not my mind. It was like—like being sprayed with water. Please, Bruce, you have to believe me. He must have planned for something to happen to me, but I’m better than that, I’m better than him.” He heaves, on the verge of desperate tears, worried more about Bruce hating him and holding a grudge against him than the possibility of his makeup smearing and revealing his face so much sooner than anticipated. “I’m better than him, I promise.”</p><p>Bruce’s hand settles hesitantly in his hair.</p><p>It feels like a benediction.</p><p>Jeremiah dares to look up at Bruce again. His expression is pinched, but his touch is gentle, and Jeremiah tries to draw strength from it in order to continue on.</p><p>“Bruce, even if Jerome is dead you’re still in danger. Someone hurt you, attacked you, and I know that it’s not the first time that you’ve had to face things that you never should have had to face. Someone needs to keep you safe, Bruce. I can keep you safe. I can’t let you get hurt or taken away. I can’t, I wouldn’t be able to withstand it.”</p><p>“Is this about…” Bruce trails off, as if he means to stop talking. Jeremiah can scarcely breathe as he waits for Bruce to either continue or draw away. “Ra’s al Ghul?”</p><p>“Yes, and no, there’s more to it than that.”</p><p>Bruce’s eyebrows furrow, and even if he doesn’t say it Jeremiah <i>knows</i> that inwardly he’s thinking that he never should have told Jeremiah about Ra’s, never should have come to Jeremiah when he needed to process what had happened to him. He hates that that’s what this has come to, that Bruce actively regrets that he’d sought him out for comfort. </p><p>“Bruce.” His heart is in his throat, as if waiting to expose itself. To say ‘I love you’ now, when Jeremiah still has secrets, would lessen the impact of the words later on, no matter how much he truly means them. Bruce had already lost faith in him. Jeremiah couldn’t admit the full depth of his feelings only to have Bruce convince himself that those blessed emotions were a lie, too, when other truths came to light. He could admit other things, though; thoughts that he feels just as keenly as every ‘I love you’ that has ever crossed his mind. “Bruce, you’re like the spring.”</p><p>Bruce’s expression flickers, bafflement taking over his brooding look of regret.</p><p>“You are spring, and I’ve spent so many years trapped in the clutches of an endless winter. You are all good things; you’ve brought happiness and light and <i>life</i> into my existence. Bruce, please, I can’t lose you.” He’d surely die. “Life is so cold without you.”</p><p>“Jeremiah…” His hand begins to withdraw, and Jeremiah fights the nearly overwhelming desire to chase after it. He’s not sure how much longer he can hold himself back from showering Bruce with all of the affection and love that was overflowing from within Jeremiah’s heart, even if Bruce wasn’t yet in a state of mind where he’d appreciate it. “I don’t know what to say. Even if you think Jerome’s trap didn’t do anything, how can you know for sure? What you did, forcing me down here and locking me away, it’s not like you. It’s not the you that I—” Bruce’s breath hitches, and he blinks rapidly as his eyes begin to gloss over yet again. “—that I’ve come to know. You need help. Let me try and help you.”</p><p>“I don’t need help, Bruce.” </p><p>Jeremiah’s hands open up again, crushed petals perfuming the air between them. </p><p>“All I need is you.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><i>Canon-Divergence.</i><br/>Also I do promise that things start looking up after this. You guys have hung in there through the pain but overall I do want this to have a pretty happy ending, especially compared to what canon season 4 gave to us and Bruce.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It is obvious that, despite Jeremiah’s earnest reassurances, Bruce thinks that there was more to Jerome’s trap than Jeremiah is telling him. And what can Jeremiah, with so many secrets left waiting to come to the forefront, do to assuage Bruce’s valid concerns but reveal to him the little that Jerome’s ploy had actually done?</p><p>“I’ll show you,” he promises. “I’ll show you what it did to me, so long as you promise you’ll eat something. It doesn’t have to be an entire meal with me. It doesn’t even have to be much.” It’s less of a bribe and more of a bargain, or at least Jeremiah thinks so, and he hopes that Bruce doesn’t feel as if he’s being backed into a corner. “I just need some time to… Prepare.” He looks down at his hands, remembering when he’d been watching the colour leech out of them and how frantically his mind had been racing with terrified thoughts and distant, rasping laughter. “I was always going to show you, eventually,” he offers weakly. In a cemetery, to an entire crowd, with so many other things happening at the exact same time to make the reveal of his face something like an afterthought. Not one-on-one in heavy silence with Bruce watching Jeremiah wipe cosmetics off of his skin with single-minded focus. “I was just waiting for the right time.”</p><p>“I’ll think about it,” Bruce murmurs. The bouquet of flowers is no longer in his hands, now, instead laid out beside him, over half of the stems stripped bare. Jeremiah wonders if he’ll continue ripping out petals as soon as he leaves the room. “I’d rather you just show me without trying to get something out of it, though.” His hands fold together restlessly, as if he’s holding himself back from reaching out again. “Jeremiah, you realize why I’m upset, right?” His voice turns cautious, as if he expects that Jeremiah might, at any moment, transform into his mad brother. “You… You know that what you’ve done is wrong, right?”</p><p>“It’s to protect you,” Jeremiah whispers instead of answering. “I would do anything to keep you safe, Bruce.”</p><p>“Even if your actions go directly against my wishes?”</p><p>“Someone has to look out for you, prioritize you.” Love you, he adds silently. Bruce’s hands are starting to clench together, his knuckles going white. “But I realize that I… I haven’t fully taken your feelings into account, and I’m sorry.” Jeremiah begins to draw away, even though he wishes he could remain. The longer he stays, the more likely Bruce will become angry with him. The more angry Bruce is with him, the less likely he is to listen to Jeremiah’s reasoning. “I’m sorry for locking you inside of this room. I was just so worried that you’d try to run and end up getting yourself lost in the maze.” He stands, and although that worry is still incredibly prevalent within him he says, “I’ll keep the door open from now on.”</p><p>“I’m still locked away,” Bruce tells him, the warmth that had slipped into his tone is long-gone, now. But it had been there. It had come back, even if it was only for a brief time. “You’ve increased the space that I’m locked away inside of by a hundred acres, but that doesn’t change the fact that I want to go home, and you’re not letting me. I—” He tenses up, arms folding over himself, fingers pressing hard into the skin of his arms. “I want to go home. I want to see Alfred.”</p><p>“I can’t let you go, Bruce.”</p><p>And that place isn’t your home, not anymore. You belong with me. </p><p>Bruce’s knees fold up and he presses his face into them, hiding himself away. His voice is already beginning to tremble as he tells Jeremiah,</p><p>“That’s what I thought you’d say.”</p><p>The sting of those words, and the way that he’d said them, remain with Jeremiah even after he leaves.</p><p>The morning passes with the scribbling of more notes, annotations made alongside pages of Jerome’s diary, frantic re-imaginings of events that Jeremiah had previously thought were already perfected; like his confession about Jerome’s trap, like revealing his uncovered face. There are still things that he <i>must</i> do in order to sway the Maniax to his side so that he has the manpower to steal the bombs and position them simultaneously and approach the GCPD without getting shot in the street before he can generously offer time for citizens to be evacuated and blow up the clocktower to prove his intentions.</p><p>There are things he must do, but one of those things used to be pretending that he thought that Bruce was his brother in disguise. One of those things used to be pretending that he meant to cut Bruce’s face off. There are things that he’ll have to approach in a new light so that he doesn’t push Bruce further away after he’s gone about the momentous undertaking of gaining his trust back, but the two most important goals remain as they always were:</p><p>Bruce and the maze. The maze and Bruce. Described by a single word: <i>utopia.</i></p><p>Bruce—his own personal spring—in the maze with him; safe, loved, taken care of, a crown of flowers settled upon his head by Jeremiah’s adoring hands. Order, serenity, a paired Sovereign; a King and a Queen in their unparalleled kingdom. The solitude that had settled over his current maze like a thick layer of snow would not have the opportunity to follow him into the new one.</p><p>His eyes dart up, as they so often do, to glance at the camera feed from the now-open holding cell. Bruce is there, laid out on his stomach on the rug, hastily writing something into a notebook of his own. Several glances ago Bruce had not been in the room, and Jeremiah had had to fight down a wave of alarm and an urge to call Ecco—who had watched Jeremiah not-close the door in a weighty silence that had left it unnecessary for her to once again verbalize the fact that she thought it was a bad idea—and start a search for him right away. His eyes had stayed pinned to the screen for nearly five minutes before Bruce had returned and laid back down again.</p><p>He hasn’t caught sight of Bruce eating anything, only drinking another bottle of water.</p><p>A bottle of water, which had been sealed.</p><p>
  <i>I don’t know if I can trust anything from you.</i>
</p><p>Jeremiah rises out of his chair so abruptly that it tips over and falls onto the floor behind him.</p><p>The bottles of water that Bruce had been drinking from were sealed and obviously not tampered with, but the snacks in the fridge were handmade, not pre-packaged. The pomegranate offered to Bruce had been handled by Ecco, and already cut into by the time he had entered the kitchen. And how easy might it be, to stir something into the last few ladles of batter so that a final batch of pancakes could be laced with something that might make him compliant, easier to handle, disoriented? Perhaps Bruce didn’t know that Jeremiah had drugged him, but he knew that Ecco did and that Jeremiah hadn’t done anything to stop her, and Ecco had—</p><p>Ecco had mentioned drugging him again if he tried to run away.  </p><p>This time when Jeremiah rushes to the holding cell his entrance is so abrupt that Bruce cannot seem to conceal how startled he is by it, staring up at Jeremiah with wide eyes as soon as he stumbles into view.</p><p>What a sight he must make; messy hair, rumpled clothes, the wan cast of his face showing through because he still hasn’t applied more makeup—what would be the point, if he were going to be taking it off to show Bruce his face anyway—and making him appear so unlike his usual, put-together self. But how could he be his usual self when Bruce felt further away from him than ever before? Despite the lack of physical distance between them there was a rift that Jeremiah was the root cause of. He’d thought that it would be easy to cross—a matter of a simple explanation and consistent displays of his everlasting love—but the chasm between himself and Bruce was wider and deeper than he had believed it would be. </p><p>Bruce stares at him, wordless, and Jeremiah thinks that perhaps in this moment he truly looks as physically unwell as he is utterly lovesick.</p><p>“I won’t make it, I won’t even touch it,” he vows immediately and without context. “You can go into the kitchen and take anything that you want directly from the fridge or the pantry. I won’t be there, if you don’t want me there.” Saying it <i>hurts</i>, but what else is Jeremiah to do? “And neither will Ecco.”</p><p>A considering look crosses over Bruce’s features, and he snaps his notebook shut. If Jeremiah thought his question would be answered with a smile or sincerity, he would ask what Bruce had been writing.</p><p>“You can come with me, I suppose,” Bruce eventually answers as he rises to his feet. His eyes dip down to Jeremiah’s shoes and stay locked there. “Since you promised to show me what Jerome’s gas did to you.”</p><p>Bruce would have to look at his face, then. Would he immediately turn away from him, afterwards? Would he never want to look upon Jeremiah’s visage again? Even Ecco had been startled the first time that she saw him. Jeremiah himself had been taken aback when saw his new reflection, even though he’d watched his hands become chalky. </p><p>He would know soon enough.</p><p>Jeremiah nods tightly in agreement and Bruce begins to walk, giving as wide a berth as he can as he steps past Jeremiah, now familiar enough with the layout of the nearest hallways to make his way to the kitchen without any guidance.  </p><p>Jeremiah watches in silence as Bruce prepares what he wants to break his two-day fast; a paltry snack of bread and butter accompanied by an apple, nothing like the feasts that Jeremiah had lovingly wanted to prepare for him. Even as Bruce sits down at the table across from him he seems hesitant, staring down at the small, white plate before him with furrowed eyebrows. Jeremiah has to bite his lip to keep from breaking the silence.</p><p>Bruce used to listen to him speak with eyes full of wonder. </p><p>Not at the moment, though. Someday he would again, but not right now. </p><p>“You know,” Bruce begins lowly, almost as if talking to himself. “My mother, she used to read to me when I was growing up. Children’s stuff, fairy tales.” He continues to look down at the things that he’d gathered with a peculiar wariness. “It’s been so long that I can’t entirely remember, but I think there used to be theme along the lines of… If you got trapped inside of a fairy circle, and you ate or drank anything offered to you there, you’d be stuck forever.”</p><p>“I’m not a creature of myth, Bruce. There are no magical laws that are going to bind you to this place, and you’ll be able to go aboveground again, once Gotham is safe for you.”</p><p>Bruce’s eyes stay locked where they are.</p><p>“Jeremiah, I love Gotham, I love my city, but it’s never been safe for me.” So he did, at the very least, realize that. Perhaps, once he was ready to listen, it would not be terribly hard to convince him that Jeremiah bringing him underground was the safest, most sensible option. “I don’t think it ever really will be, and you can’t keep me down here forever.”</p><p>“It won’t be forever, Bruce.” </p><p>A disbelieving frown tugs at Bruce’s mouth but, at long last, he finally brings the slice of bread up to his mouth and bites. It’s less than Jeremiah would want him to eat, but after two entire days of nothing but water he supposes that Bruce’s body wouldn’t be able to handle a regular meal. Bruce slowly finishes his bread, then his apple, and then he finally lifts his gaze to look at Jeremiah, silent but expectant. </p><p>Jeremiah was always going to show him, eventually. That’s what he tells himself in order to settle his nerves as he stands, grabbing a clean tea-towel and running it under the tap.</p><p>With only one layer of makeup on his face, he imagines it won’t be very difficult to wash it off.</p><p>He sits down again with the tea towel folded in front of him, the slight smudges left from his hands—always done with more care than his face to make sure the colour didn’t rub off on everything that he touched, though today he’d been less thorough with them, as well—folded inward to keep the discolouration out of sight.</p><p>First, he takes off his glasses.</p><p>“Jerome’s gas had a few… Mild cosmetic effects,” he explains weakly.  </p><p>One by one, he slips out his contacts. </p><p>Bruce blinks as the sea-glass green of his new eyes are revealed. He opens his mouth as if to say something, then shuts it again. Perhaps he had been expecting Jeremiah to speak like Jerome, or to mimic his laughter.</p><p>Like Jeremiah had when he’d recorded his special messages only a few days ago.</p><p>Jeremiah’s hand shakes imperceptibly as he grabs the damp tea-towel. </p><p>“Some may be a bit more startling than others.”</p><p>He holds the tea towel against his brow bone and, after briefly shutting his eyes and taking a deep breath, he slowly and firmly drags it down it face.</p><p>He watches Bruce’s expression shift. First there is confusion, and then there is a dawning look of alarm. When the towel leaves Jeremiah’s face and Bruce is free to see the ashen skin left in the wake of its path he looks more distressed than outright horrified. He grips at the table, as if he needs to ground himself. As if he is holding himself back. As if he would reach out to Jeremiah if his hands were free to do so.</p><p>Jeremiah wishes so fervently that he would give in. Jeremiah longs so ardently for the gentle touch of his hands, more than he could even express with words.</p><p>“Oh, Jeremiah,” he breathes unsteadily. He looks as if he means to say more, but the words appear to get stuck in his throat. Perhaps, if Jeremiah had shown Bruce his face even as little as a week ago, Bruce would have been rushing to soothe him and offer him words of comfort. Perhaps Jeremiah would have felt himself flush and Bruce would finally see the colour in his cheeks. Perhaps Bruce wouldn’t have minded it.</p><p>But as little as a week ago Jeremiah had still been certain that Bruce would first see him like this in the cemetery.</p><p>“I can put it all back on,” he offers, voice strained, throat tight. He doesn’t want Bruce to be even more uncomfortable around him than he already is, because then he will be even more resistive to all that Jeremiah wants to give and give and <i>give</i>, but the idea that he will have to continue to conceal himself even now that Bruce was aware of his unadulterated appearance fills him with a previously unknown anguish. In the furthest corners of his mind perhaps he had hoped that Bruce would like it. “The makeup and the contacts.”</p><p>Bruce’s gaze snaps up to meet his. In his dark eyes Jeremiah can see a swirl of emotions, too many to pick out and put names to, until eventually everything settles. Jeremiah waits on tenterhooks for him to say something, anything—though he hopes that Bruce, who was always so kind, always so good, will not use this opportunity to tear into him.</p><p>“You… You don’t have to.” His gaze darts down, then back up again for just a second. “If you don’t want to.”</p><p>Something tense and aching unwinds in Jeremiah’s chest. </p><p>“You have questions, I can tell.” The way Bruce was looking at him, fleeting and curious but trying not to be rude, was a welcome change. “Ask them.”</p><p>And then, after indulging him by providing answers, Bruce would finally be willing to listen to Jeremiah without acute anger or sorrow clouding his judgement. </p><p>Bruce worries his lower lip between his teeth, eyes fluttering halfway shut to gaze at Jeremiah from beneath his lashes. Jeremiah feels a pulse of heat at the unintentionally flirty nature of his look. His mind briefly floods with the knowledge that he’d love to take Bruce’s lip between his own teeth like that, gently nipping at him just to hear what sort of sound he’d make. He’d love to do all sorts of things—</p><p>“How long have you been…” Bruce drifts off and Jeremiah’s mind fills the gap. Chalky. Ashen. Ghastly white. “… Pale like that? Was it gradual?”</p><p>“No. No, the first day we met was the only one where I wasn’t wearing several layers of makeup.” A thought strikes him, then, and he cannot help but add, “You see, Bruce, I have been as I am now for almost the entirety of our interactions.” Bruce looks uncomfortable at the knowledge, but it is the truth, and he needs to hear it. “You said that I am not the me that you’ve come to know, but I am. I have been. The only time that you interacted with me as I was before I became the version that I was meant to be was that first day, before we were even friends.” Bruce doesn’t speak up to try and interrupt him, and Jeremiah’s heart begins to race. “You might have been telling yourself that our friendship was all a lie—” How awful and wretched; the idea that Bruce might have begun to think that Jeremiah’s very attachment to him was a falsehood is agony. Jeremiah needs to show him the truth. Needs to show Bruce how much he is loved. “—but I can promise you that it wasn’t. Bruce, you are my very best friend. I—” <i>I love you.</i> “—have never felt for anyone, the that way I feel for you.”</p><p>Bruce is silent for a long time. Long enough that Jeremiah beings to think, finally, finally—</p><p>“Friends respect each other’s choices. That doesn’t mean that they don’t try to help, or that they don’t worry, but they don’t take control out of the other person’s hands.”</p><p>“I didn’t bring you down here to hurt you or cause you any torment.” His motivations were pure and good and reasonable. His actions spurred by the most devoted love. “I brought you down here to keep you safe.” And he would repeat the truth as many times as necessary for it to finally stick in Bruce’s precious, stubborn, beautiful head. </p><p>“Jeremiah.” Bruce sounds as if he, too, is growing weary of the repetition. “Whatever your motivations may have been, you <i>kidnapped</i> me and are keeping me <i>trapped</i> inside of your bunker. I want to go home. I want to see Alfred. You say that I won’t be down here forever because you’ll make Gotham safe, but—” His eyebrows furrow, then. “—that would imply some kind of plan. Some kind of <i>timeline</i>. Jeremiah—”</p><p>Before Bruce can say whatever he means to Jeremiah cuts in with, </p><p>“What if you had been abducted by Ra’s and his followers again?”</p><p>Bruce freezes. </p><p>Jeremiah has never seen Bruce so shocked, so still. He doesn’t know the details, but he doesn’t need to know much to realize that he will make Ra’s al Ghul <i>wish</i> for death long before it is granted to him. Jeremiah will fully embrace the cold, unfeeling self that he had been without Bruce in order to bring about his end.</p><p>“How do you know about that?” Bruce whispers. “Who… Who told you? What do you know?”</p><p>“I hardly know anything, Bruce.” Jeremiah reaches out across the table, fingers desperately stretching. If only Bruce would give in. If only Bruce would reach out, too. At the barest brush of their fingers Jeremiah would give him everything, the love pouring out of him in a steady, unending flow. “I don’t know any of the particulars. I don’t know when, or how, or even why. I don’t know anything except for that at some point in your life <i>it happened</i> and that <i>he’s</i> come back into your life again and that it’s been making you suffer. Can’t you see that that’s one of the reasons why I’ve been so worried about you?”</p><p>“That’s not something I just <i>tell</i> people about, Jeremiah. That’s a part of my life that I wish had never happened, so many awful things came of it.”</p><p>“I’m not blaming you for not telling me, Bruce.” Although not knowing was almost enough to drive Jeremiah out of his mind with the terror of the unknown. When, how, why, <i>for how long</i> had Bruce been held captive with people who didn’t care for his safety? “I’m just trying to make you <i>understand</i>. There are so many things that you’ve gone through, so many trials by fire that you’ve managed to survive which you never should have run through in the first place. My brother, and the Maniax, and Ra’s, and I’m sure there are other things that I don’t know anything about. When we first met you spoke to me about standing up to terror, Bruce, do you remember? You were so brave and valiant in the face of peril, and I didn’t know, back then, that it was because you’ve actually been in danger for your entire life!”</p><p>It’s not until Jeremiah is finished, panting, that he realizes he’d begun to yell. He wasn’t mad at Bruce, of course, only the terrible circumstances of Bruce’s life, but he immediately regrets raising his voice. </p><p>Bruce curls in on himself; he looks young and small, so in need of Jeremiah’s protection. Jeremiah wants to press kisses into his hair, and all over his face, and on the backs of his hands. Jeremiah wants to hold Bruce in his arms and never ever let him go. Bruce was someone who should have been guarded for his entire life, precious beyond measure, not someone who had to face hardship after hardship.</p><p>“I didn’t—” Bruce’s eyes are gleaming. “I didn’t ask for my life to be like this. I didn’t—” His voice cracks and Jeremiah feels a familiar sting in his own eyes again. “I didn’t want—” He breaks down into tears, raising his hands to his mouth in an attempt to muffle his cries, but the miserable sounds slip through his fingers and Jeremiah scrambles out of the chair to go rush to Bruce’s side and kneel, unable to keep away while Bruce is so hurt, so distraught, right in front of him.</p><p>His arms fold around him in a hug and Bruce weakly struggles against it at first, sobs wracking his body even harder. Jeremiah makes low, soothing noises, and pets his hair, and rubs his back, and ignores the tear that slips down his own face. </p><p>“I’m sorry that I yelled, I’m sorry.”</p><p>“It’s not—it’s not that. I—” Bruce hides his face fully behind his hands. “I just—”</p><p>“Shh, shh, you don’t have to talk.” Jeremiah holds Bruce tighter, closer, trying so hard to comfort him even though he’s not entirely sure how, when Bruce seems so inconsolable. “You don’t have to say anything.”</p><p>And within his embrace Bruce begins to melt.</p><p>His struggles to free himself from Jeremiah’s arms slowly come to a stop. His body goes lax. He leans against Jeremiah until, eventually, his hands fall away from his face to wrap around Jeremiah tightly. Bruce buries his face in the crook of Jeremiah’s neck, hot tears wetting his collar and smearing his makeup as Bruce’s hands clutch at Jeremiah’s shirt. Jeremiah continues to run a hand up and down Bruce’s trembling back, mind buzzing with too many thoughts to keep track of, and Bruce cries and cries until there are no more tears left and he is left gasping soft, unsteady breaths against skin left white by his tear-tracks. </p><p>Jeremiah turns his head to press the softest of all of his kisses into Bruce’s curls, closing his eyes and wishing, praying that Bruce will settle. </p><p>“I didn’t want this,” Bruce murmurs lowly. “Danger found me when I was young, and once it saw me it never stopped following me. I’ve lost—” His breath hitches and he shudders, hiding his tear-slick face deeper in the safety of Jeremiah’s neck. “I’ve lost my parents, and friends, and even people who could have been friends. It’s like being around me puts targets on other peoples’ backs. And now—and now I’m losing you, too.” </p><p>“You haven’t lost me,” Jeremiah replies; immediate, vehement. “I’m right here. You’ll never lose me.”</p><p>I love you. </p><p>“I wish I could believe you,” Bruce whispers.</p><p>Jeremiah fights the urge to bring Bruce even closer, still. Fights the urge to kiss him everywhere that his mouth can reach. </p><p>“I’ll prove it to you,” he vows.</p><p>Bruce makes a low, strangled sound, and he begins to pull away.</p><p>Jeremiah almost can’t believe that he has the strength to let him go.</p><p>Bruce wipes at his red eyes, carefully not looking directly at Jeremiah, who is still steadfastly knelt beside him. Jeremiah senses that their time together is drawing to an end, and he hates that Bruce will part ways with him again, but a new hope has sprung forth in his chest. </p><p>Despite Bruce’s conflicting feelings about him, he didn’t want to lose Jeremiah—to madness, or danger, or death, or whatever else he’d lost other people to. It was, however, impossible for him to lose Jeremiah. Bruce would come to realize soon that they were bound together eternally, the connection between them winding them closer and closer to their shared destiny.</p><p>Utopia. </p><p>So when Bruce shyly excuses himself from the table, Jeremiah does not follow. Instead he goes to his own room and fully washes away the remanence of his old self. He doesn’t need to hide anymore. He has one less secret to keep from Bruce, and is thus one step closer to saying,</p><p>
  <i>I love you.</i>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Jeremiah wants to hold Bruce's hands <i>so bad.</i></p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Bruce doesn’t come to the kitchen for dinner, instead staying sprawled out to write in the notebook in his room—Jeremiah has a very strong suspicion that he is what Bruce is writing about, though he firmly tells himself that he isn’t going to pry—and blessedly still not attempting to make a break for it. Jeremiah should have known that Bruce would be too smart to try. One hundred acres, seventy-three dead ends, only two doors to the aboveground which were locked and solid enough that they wouldn’t be broken into or out of with any level of ease. There wasn’t anywhere for him to go and running would only weaken him. </p>
<p>Bruce does, thankfully, begin to pick at the food that had been left in the room for him, which is the only reason why Jeremiah holds himself back from forcing him into the kitchen. Bruce would eventually come entirely of his own free will—with no bargains behind the gesture, which will make the act all the more significant—and would eat whatever Jeremiah had lovingly prepared for him.</p>
<p>Jeremiah thinks that he will not have to wait much longer until that moment. Slowly but surely Bruce’s stubborn resistance was beginning to wear down under the steady tide of Jeremiah’s love, and the warm feeling of having Bruce in his arms and being held in return lingers, impossible to forget. </p>
<p>With the door to the holding cell now kept open, and Jeremiah having already spent time with Bruce completely <i>unchaperoned</i> without any harm to him coming out of it, Ecco is free to leave the bunker and fully focus her attention on other things. Not only finishing up Jeremiah’s hideaway, but also keeping an eye on Jerome’s cult. Picking out the best and the worst and, most importantly of all, figuring out who had stepped in to assume the role of quasi-leader after Jerome’s death. She’d narrowed it down to a handful of possible choices, and Jeremiah has faith that she’ll have a name for him, soon.</p>
<p>Jeremiah will need someone on the inside to have some idea of what is really going on, in order to make sure that Jerome’s wake is carried out according to the plan he’d laid out weeks ago. He does not believe that Bruce is so very attached to the GCPD as a whole that Jeremiah will have to re-work anything about it, and he is amusedly fond of the idea of the GCPD being overrun by the Maniax. </p>
<p>He imagines that the Maniax will be rather fond of it, too. </p>
<p>Evening passes. Night comes. The warm sensation of Bruce in his arms begins to fade even if the memory of it stays. Jeremiah is once again too cold and lonely to sleep, and with the holding cell door now open he cannot press his back against it while remaining out of Bruce’s sight. </p>
<p>He goes to it, anyway.</p>
<p>He will sit just beyond the opening, and Bruce will never have to know that—</p>
<p>“Jeremiah?”</p>
<p>His breath catches, feet immediately coming to a pause just steps away from where he had been planning to settle down. His head whips around, but Bruce is not out in the hallway to have been able to see him coming. </p>
<p>“I know that you’re out there, Jeremiah. You don’t walk as lightly as Ecco does.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah takes a few steps forward, stopping just out of sight. He wonders if Bruce had been on the verge of sleep when he was roused by the sound of footsteps. He wonders if Bruce is sprawled out in bed. He wonders if Bruce had gone to sleep shirtless again. He wonders if he’ll be able to hold himself back from reaching out to run his hands over bare arms if he sees for certain. </p>
<p>He wonders if Bruce would enjoy being touched by him; if he’d be shy, if he’d lean into it, if he’d touch Jeremiah in return. </p>
<p>“I just wanted to check in on you.”</p>
<p>“Is that so?” Bruce’s tone is flat, a stark difference from what he’d sounded like hours ago in the kitchen, now that he’s had the time to completely pull himself together. Perhaps he’s even more defensive than he would have been, embarrassed by the vulnerability that he’d shown and not realizing that he had nothing to be embarrassed about. “Isn’t that what the camera in here is for? You can check in on me at any time without bothering to come see me in person,” he continues, and Jeremiah grimaces at the thinly veiled aggravation. “My lack of privacy must be very convenient.”</p>
<p>“I could disable it, but if I do, and you try to run—”</p>
<p>“Where am I going to run to, Jeremiah? Blindly into the maze to get caught in one of your several-dozen dead-ends? Into your office to try and figure out how to unlock the bunker door from the inside only to get caught in the act by either you or Ecco and then end up back in here with the door locked all over again?” A sigh gusts out of Bruce’s mouth. “If I promise that I won’t, would you trust me not to?”</p>
<p>Jeremiah takes another step, turning away from the room mostly to keep from seeing Bruce and possibly losing all semblance of self-control, because already he is reaching his limit. He has given Bruce space, he has let Bruce walk away from him, he has tried to make the transition from above to below as seamless as possible. But Bruce is right here, and Bruce isn’t yelling at him, and Jeremiah wants to give and give and <i>give</i>; endlessly and eternally and everything that Bruce deserves. Instead he stands, back to Bruce, staring at the blank wall before him in an effort to stay calm.   </p>
<p>“I’ll disable it,” he says. He has the surrounding cameras, in any case, if Bruce really were to try and do the impossible. “And I’ll give you something to cover it up from this side, too.” Because Jeremiah’s not entirely sure how much his promises are worth to Bruce anymore.</p>
<p>He hears shuffling behind him, soft footsteps approaching, and his entire body goes tense with the aching desire to feel Bruce’s hand rest against his shoulder, or even grab onto his own fingers, tugging him around and staring directly into Jeremiah’s naked eyes. The air around him charges with an intoxicating current as he waits.</p>
<p>And then there is pressure against his back. Not a hand. Not a chest.</p>
<p>“Jeremiah.” Bruce’s back is pressed against his own, the warmth of him seeping into Jeremiah and making him feel just as besotted as ever. “How do you plan on making Gotham safe for me?”</p>
<p>Jeremiah leans his weight a little more heavily against him. If Bruce notices, he doesn’t say anything about it.</p>
<p>“With the generators, of course.”</p>
<p>Just not in the way that Bruce was expecting. </p>
<p>He can feel the slight movement of Bruce jolting in surprise. </p>
<p>“The generators,” he repeats softly and with a trace of disbelief. “… Right. Are they almost done? I feel like I’m losing track of time, down here. No clocks, no sunlight, no way to be sure how much time really passes because even the artificial lights of the maze don’t change, no way to be certain that you and Ecco aren’t trying to feed me lunch in the middle of the night.”</p>
<p>“It can be disorienting, being underground when you aren’t used to it,” Jeremiah says empathetically. “It’s been nearly three full days since we went into the city-center. This is your third night here after I brought you underground with me.”</p>
<p>“It feels like an eternity. All I have to do down here is read and sleep and play crossword puzzles,” he mutters in displeasure. And write in your notebook, Jeremiah silently tacks on. “What about the generators? You didn’t answer my question. If they’re what you think will make Gotham safe for me I assume that you won’t stop working on them.”</p>
<p>“Of course I won’t stop.” The very idea of it is preposterous. “The one down here is exactly the way we left it a few days ago, and I haven’t called the lab to see how the ones there are progressing.” Jeremiah had very little contact with the team that Bruce had put together, only ever forwarding his notes to them. Bruce was the one who had kept track of every step at Wayne Industries. “Maybe, if you’re feeling up to it, you could come with me into the office to work on it?” Jeremiah offers, hands gradually beginning reach out behind his back, searching for Bruce’s fingers. He doesn’t find them, Bruce’s arms likely crossed over himself again, and his cold hands retreat back to his sides. “You and me, and the generators.”</p>
<p>Bruce sighs, heartfelt. </p>
<p>“I’ve missed working on them,” he admits softly. “I’ve missed working with you.”</p>
<p>“You don’t have to miss them, and you don’t have to miss me. Everything is right here.” All Bruce had to do was turn around and reach out. “Tomorrow morning, after breakfast, we could work together again. We’re so close, Bruce. I can sense it. When the final components fall into place, I want you to be there with me. When I disconnect the bunker from the power grid for the first test, I want you to be there with me.”</p>
<p>And Bruce had always been so enraptured by the generators that Jeremiah is sure he would never willingly miss out on their final steps.</p>
<p>“I’ll think about it.” The warmth leaves Jeremiah as Bruce treads further into his room. “Goodnight, Jeremiah.”</p>
<p>“Goodnight, Bruce.”</p>
<p>Night passes, morning dawns.</p>
<p>Bruce comes into the kitchen for breakfast.</p>
<p>He cannot quite hold back his reaction to seeing Jeremiah’s entire face bare for the first time, even if he’d had an idea of what to expect. Still, he does not outright flinch away from the sight of him or keep his eyes averted, so Jeremiah is content. For now. He offers Bruce whatever he desires to break his fast, but again Bruce chooses things from the pantry for himself instead of accepting the offer of Jeremiah’s cooking. Bruce is here, though, and eating with him.</p>
<p>It’s a start.</p>
<p>“I haven’t seen Ecco for a while,” Bruce probes unsubtly as soon as Jeremiah sits down across from him. “What’s she up to?”</p>
<p>“Ecco has a life outside of this place,” Jeremiah deflects, cutting into his omelet. “She cannot spend all of her time with me.” Bruce’s lips purse together, and Jeremiah can practically hear the incoming, ‘so you trust <i>her</i> to be safe aboveground’, so he quickly continues on. “Besides, someone has to be up there keeping an eye out for Ra’s al Ghul.” So that Jeremiah could capture and destroy him personally. </p>
<p>Bruce deflates, his arguments forgotten. “Jeremiah, she doesn’t even know what he looks like. Even if she did, Ra’s isn’t someone who anyone can just go out and find.”</p>
<p>“You’re either overestimating him, or underestimating Ecco.”</p>
<p>“He’ll see her coming. He’ll <i>know</i> that she’s coming.”</p>
<p>“How?”</p>
<p>Bruce is silent for a long moment, and then his eyes fall to the tabletop.</p>
<p>“If I say it out loud, it won’t make any logical sense,” he says under his breath. It takes Jeremiah a few seconds to remember that that is something that Bruce has told him before. Bruce had been so sure that a terrible event would occur when he’d come to see Jeremiah after Ra’s didn’t let Bruce do what he felt he had to. When Jeremiah asked him <i>why</i> he thought it would happen, that had been his answer. When Jeremiah asked him <i>what</i> he thought would happen, it had been…</p>
<p>
  <i>A cataclysmic event that would destroy and create.</i>
</p>
<p>To truly build something you first had to tear down what was already there; just like Jeremiah was going to do when he gave Gotham its new face. </p>
<p>Bruce stares at his plate and Jeremiah begins to worry that, somehow, he is beginning to figure certain bits and pieces out ahead of Jeremiah’s schedule. But then his eyes lift and his expression is not calculating, but imploring. </p>
<p>“Since she’s aboveground, can you ask her to do something for me? As an act of kindness, of sorts, for your best friend.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah curbs the instantaneous desire to say ‘yes’ and grant any and all of Bruce’s wishes.</p>
<p>“That depends on what it is.”</p>
<p>Bruce’s hands fold together and his eyes dart down timidly. He briefly looks up at Jeremiah through his lashes, but his gaze settles back on his hands before long. “I don’t care if it implicates someone else, and I don’t care how she does it,” he starts, voice soft. “But could she—could she let Alfred at least know that I’m okay? That I’m still alive? Please. He’s my family, Jeremiah, and he must be so worried. I don’t want him to think that what happened to me… The last time that I was taken away is happening all over again. There must be a way, there must be—”</p>
<p>“I’ll let her know,” Jeremiah cuts in the moment that he sees Bruce begin to tremble. It is not an unreasonable request, and most importantly it is not the impossible-to-grant appeal of being set free. It is a small thing that can make Bruce happy, and Jeremiah longs to make Bruce happy. He’s fervently missed the sight of Bruce’s subtle, subdued smiles being directed his way.</p>
<p>Bruce’s eyes snap up to him immediately, and they are not full of the wonder that Jeremiah desires to see again, but they are not angry or upset or heartbreakingly void of emotion.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Bruce whispers, the tense line of his shoulders relaxing. “Thank you, Jeremiah.”</p>
<p>Around his cutlery Jeremiah’s grip becomes tight.</p>
<p>He eats quickly, attention focused so much more on that which continues to lay just outside of his reach than any of the things within his immediate grasp. Bruce is quiet at the other end of the table, but Jeremiah’s mind spins upon him ceaselessly without any current prompting. </p>
<p>Bruce’s hand settling in his hair. Bruce in his arms, holding him and crying against him. Bruce’s back pressing against his. Bruce’s soft tone as he voiced his gratitude. Things are not progressing as quickly as Jeremiah would have liked, but Bruce was already less angry than when he had first been after Jeremiah brought him underground. </p>
<p>And he is so, so sure that once he and Bruce begin to work with each other on the generator—the tipping point of their fall into each other, the project which brought them together, their origin point as something ultimately meant to become a matching set—Bruce’s negative feelings will lessen and lessen even more quickly. By the time Jeremiah’s new maze is complete and Gotham is finally, truly safe for Bruce Jeremiah will not have to lock Bruce away in order to protect him, because Bruce would willingly stay at Jeremiah’s side, where it was safest for him to be. </p>
<p>From the center of the maze they would reign, and in loving collaboration they would build more generators to bring light and hope and life into their domain. </p>
<p>Jeremiah imagines Bruce haloed in the blue light of the generator in the office again, drenched in radiance and turned divine, and he thinks of how he will pay homage to his other half when the future generators go live and the maze is made even more beautiful. He thinks of how he will avidly worship Bruce with his mouth and his hands, and how Bruce might praise him in turn. He thinks of Bruce looking up at him with an adoring smile, his warm eyes shining with the quintessence of life itself and full of unconcealed wonder. </p>
<p>Jeremiah inhales shakily, full of a churning heat that will not immediately settle, and he turns his attention to something else to keep himself from doing anything that might, at this particular moment, scare Bruce more than it charms him. </p>
<p>He goes about the process of making coffee instead of tangling his hands into Bruce’s hair and laying an amorous kiss upon his mouth, somehow entirely sure that the moment he begins to give Bruce real kisses—not just the gentle press of Jeremiah’s mouth to his soft hair and hands—he will not be able to do anything else for hours. He brews enough for two out of affectionate habit, and pulls out two mugs out of hope. </p>
<p>Into one he stirs a couple spoons of sugar, and when he goes back to the table he holds it out to Bruce in offering.</p>
<p>“Black, two sugars,” he says lowly. “Just the way you like it.” It’s a small act of love, remembering the way that Bruce takes his coffee and preparing it for him. </p>
<p>But it’s a start. </p>
<p>Bruce looks up at him for a moment, eyes scanning over Jeremiah’s face with only a small amount of internal conflict showcasing over his features before he finally reaches out to accept the mug. Though their fingers do not brush upon the handover Jeremiah feels warmth spring within him anyway.</p>
<p>This is the first thing that Bruce had willing taken from him since the hot chocolate.</p>
<p>Soon he would willingly accept other acts of Jeremiah’s love. Soon he would even begin to enjoy them, then reciprocate them. </p>
<p>“Would you like to come into the office to work on the generator?” He and Ecco had moved it back into its usual spot before she had left to complete her tasks aboveground. It was sitting there, waiting for Jeremiah and Bruce to stand together before it again.</p>
<p>“I’m not sure,” Bruce responds hesitantly. “I’m not sure if I’m ready to work with you like that again, as if nothing has happened.”</p>
<p>“When you’re ready, come and find me.” His hand slips into his pocket, then, and pulls out a small, circular cap, tape, and a watch. “The camera in your room has been disabled. This is for you to cover it from your end.” He sets it down on the table in front of Bruce, who stares at it as if he had expected that Jeremiah would forget his promise from the previous night. “I’ll be in the office all of the day, unless I’m in here. I usually eat lunch around one, if you’d like to join me.”</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Bruce murmurs, slipping on the watch and pulling the cap and tape closer to himself. </p>
<p>Jeremiah wants so badly to kiss him, even if he does only press the most gentle and reverent of kisses to the crown of Bruce’s head. Instead he reaches out to tuck a stray curl away from Bruce’s forehead.</p>
<p>Bruce’s gaze immediately snaps up to him, eyes wide, cheeks tinged pink.</p>
<p>Jeremiah swallows heavily. </p>
<p>“I hope that I see you soon, Bruce,” he somehow manages, even though his heart is racing. “Until then, goodbye.” He turns on his heel and walks quickly out of the kitchen, lest he turn back and give Bruce something worth starting to flush over even though things between them are still so unsteady. </p>
<p>He calls Ecco and tells her of Bruce’s request, and she promises that she’ll figure out a way to make it happen without any more suspicion being cast upon Jeremiah. She gives him an update, then, about Jerome’s cult. There is a man, Jongleur, who she believes is the closest thing to a leader that the Maniax have now that their undead Messiah is no longer there to guide their actions. He seems to be at least a little cleverer than the others, not that that is a very difficult thing to be, but she thinks that he ultimately will be of use to them.</p>
<p>Jeremiah commends her excellent work and ends the call. He is still unwilling to do anything to the generator without Bruce, and he is reluctant to consider even more changes to his plans, as if to admit that his strategies which had at one point appeared flawless to him required even more reworking. </p>
<p>He thinks of the new generators, instead.</p>
<p>He had drawn out a map of his new maze weeks ago, once he had looked over all of the blueprints and figured out which load-bearing walls to destroy first in order to get the exact layout he wanted. It had the appearance of being simple to solve, when one did not take into account the sheer size of the walls which would fall into place, or the fact that there were entire city blocks of buildings that would not be touched, thus making it even harder to navigate on foot. </p>
<p>Jeremiah looks upon it with no small amount of pride before he takes it down and lays it upon his desk. He then takes out a large sheet of tracing paper to trace over all of the lines before putting it back up on his wall again. </p>
<p>The first of the new generators would, of course, be set into the center of the maze, and he marks off his and Bruce’s stronghold with a blue circle. Then his eyes scan the other parts of the map, trying to take into consideration all of the underlying structures not drawn onto the simple aerial view of the maze. </p>
<p>Where next, where next?</p>
<p>Despite his research-based understanding of all of the buildings meant to fall, he didn’t know much about the different districts in Gotham. He knew there were blocks of buildings that would be untouched to make it more difficult for the maze to be navigated, yes, but what were those buildings? Were they important? Would Bruce prefer that areas of the city in the north had power before areas of the city in the south? Would Bruce prefer that all of the generators stay in one place, with him and Jeremiah, and having all power radiate out from the center as opposed to positioning the generators in specific locations within the maze?</p>
<p>Jeremiah pulls out a large map of Gotham and lays his traced drawing over top of it, then crumples and hastily tosses the tracing paper aside when it becomes clear that the proportions of his drawing and those of the map are not nearly comparable enough for it to be of use to him. He scans the map, eyes picking out the buildings meant to fall, calculating how they are meant to fall, looking for the sites that will disappear beneath skyscrapers and the ones that will not be affected. His racing mind begins to slow, then, as he realizes that even now, planning for something that may not happen for months, he was taking full control of everything without even asking Bruce what he thought.</p>
<p>He and Bruce are meant to be partners, equals. Jeremiah wants to do this <i>for</i> him, to make him happy, but Bruce will be even happier if Jeremiah involves him in the process and asks for his opinion. </p>
<p>Bruce wanted control back, and Jeremiah would give it to him. Perhaps not right away—with Gotham as it was, looming over Bruce like a sentient, dangerous figure waiting to lash out at him—but once it was safe Bruce could be free to make decisions on his own. </p>
<p>Jeremiah refolds the map of Gotham and puts it away.</p>
<p>When the maze is finally complete he’ll ask Bruce what he wants in regard to the new generators, and Jeremiah will do everything in his power to give him exactly that. </p>
<p>And in order to ensure it Jeremiah will need to make sure that they actually have all of the supplies that they need to be able to make the new generators. How many would they be making, overall? One dozen? Two? They would not need as many as the ones in the lab because their utopia would not require nearly as much power as Gotham; less people, less energy. </p>
<p>Still, he cannot risk coming up short.</p>
<p>There are certain raw materials that he must buy from the accredited businesses that Wayne Industries had obtained their supply from, and there are other things which he does not necessarily need to purchase except to save time. He’d already researched the who and the where and the cost once the idea to make more generators after creating the maze had sprung into his head, and Jeremiah loses himself in the process of ensuring that he can acquire what he needs and have it shipped to a secure location <i>before</i> Jerome’s body being buried kick-starts everything and makes getting his hands on the necessities all that much more difficult.</p>
<p>He loses himself for longer than expected. </p>
<p>The sound of a knock on his office door startles him, and his heart drops to the vicinity of his feet when he checks the time.</p>
<p>It’s nearly two o’clock.</p>
<p>“Jeremiah? Are you in there?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” he croaks. “I’m here. Come in.” Here he was focusing on <i>generators</i> so much that he’d practically forgotten about Bruce, who had—</p>
<p>Who had come looking for him. Who had come in search of him. As if Bruce was unable to stand being parted from Jeremiah just like Jeremiah was unable to stand being parted from him.</p>
<p>—undoubtedly been <i>waiting</i> for him. </p>
<p>Bruce opens the door, stepping partway over the office’s threshold. One foot in, one foot out, lingering on the outskirts as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to come all the way inside. </p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” tumbles out of Jeremiah’s mouth immediately. “I didn’t mean to keep you waiting. I got caught up in something and lost track of time, I would never—”</p>
<p>“It’s alright Jeremiah,” Bruce cuts in. He is not smiling, but there is that hint of warmth in his tone again, like when he’d been reassuring Jeremiah that Jerome was really dead for good. “I know what you’re like when you’re working,” he continues with an air of well-earned familiarity. He did know what Jeremiah was like when he was working, he’d been around Jeremiah often enough to know how caught up in his own ideas he could become, and how quickly his mind might race from one thought to the next. “I thought I’d just… Check in.” Bruce’s gaze slowly settles on the generator in Jeremiah’s office, and there is something in his look that becomes almost fond.</p>
<p>Jeremiah feels weak-kneed at the sight of it.</p>
<p>“Have you eaten already?” He finds himself asking, though he feels somewhat ridiculous for insinuating that Bruce, who hardly even made eye contact with Jeremiah anymore, would actually—</p>
<p>“No.” Bruce’s eyes slip back over to him, not looking directly at his face, but close enough, as if his eyes had settled quite firmly on the hollow of Jeremiah’s throat. “I thought that maybe we could eat together.”</p>
<p>“Of course,” Jeremiah says immediately, jolting up to his feet. “Of course.”</p>
<p>Bruce nods and turns, slipping out of the doorway, and Jeremiah follows after him with a racing heart.</p>
<p>Bruce wanted to spend time with him.</p>
<p>The chasm between them was reducing. </p>
<p>Soon there would be nothing between them at all.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I give you progress, and <i>progress</i>.<br/>Things at work are picking up so I'm slowing down a bit, hence why this took a week and a half.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lunch is spent near to Bruce, sitting at the side of the table adjacent to him instead of the side across from him. Jeremiah even turns his chair on an angle so that Bruce is always well within his field of vision, and Bruce doesn’t frown at him or clench his fists in reaction to it. Bruce eats the simple foods that he’d picked out for himself, and he doesn’t speak much, and he doesn’t come with Jeremiah to the office afterwards, but progress is progress and Bruce had waited for Jeremiah, had come looking for Jeremiah, because he didn’t want to eat alone.</p>
<p>Or perhaps because he didn’t want to be alone, at all, as Ecco is no longer around to provide him any human contact outside of Jeremiah. Even if that was ultimately the reason, Jeremiah will not let it deter him. Bruce had wanted to spend time with him, and that was what mattered. </p>
<p>Afterwards in his office Jeremiah sorts through confirmation emails of his purchases which promise other emails as soon as his orders are shipped. Once he is sure that every item he will need is checked off of his list he feels restless, excited, because if Bruce had wanted to eat with him, then perhaps soon Bruce would want to be fed by him.</p>
<p>Even if he does not allow Jeremiah to adoringly hand-feed him, yet, maybe if Jeremiah put enough effort and love into the preparation of something then Bruce would at least try what Jeremiah had made. Jeremiah wants so badly to provide for him in all ways, and he wants to show Bruce how much effort he is willing to put into even the mundane, every-day things. He wants Bruce to eat something lovingly prepared by him and feel nourished and nurtured. He wants Bruce to take more than just coffee from him willingly.  </p>
<p>He wants Bruce to take everything that he offers. </p>
<p>Jeremiah has been gone from the kitchen for less than two hours when he returns to it, beginning the process of peeling, chopping, seasoning, stirring. He doesn’t have the time to make several different options for Bruce to pick and choose at his leisure, but he has the time for a polished recipe which he is completely confident in. He is nearly done when from the corner of his eye he sees Bruce looming in the doorway, silently watching him. </p>
<p>Jeremiah turns to face him fully, unable and unwilling to smother the smile that is starting to spread over his face. Bruce seems slightly abashed that he’d been caught staring, but he doesn’t retreat from the doorway or look away from Jeremiah.</p>
<p>Bruce steps inside, instead.</p>
<p>Jeremiah watches him out of the corner of his eye as Bruce gathers supplies for his own dinner, determined to at least get Bruce to try something that he’d made, even if it were only just one bite. They settle at the table at almost the same time and with a steadying breath Jeremiah dips his spoon into his homemade stew and, cradling one hand underneath of it, brings it towards Bruce’s mouth.</p>
<p>“Try it, please. I promise you’ll like it.”</p>
<p>And it’s untampered with, he doesn’t add, as it was all within the same bowl and slipping Bruce anything would mean slipping it to himself, as well.</p>
<p>Bruce’s eyes dart up to meet his gaze, then land on the spoon. He is still for a few moments, as if weighing his options, before finally, finally—</p>
<p>He averts his eyes and leans in to take the spoon into his mouth. When he pulls back he murmurs a subdued, “It’s good,” and Jeremiah’s heart skips, even though Bruce doesn’t ask for any more and focusses on his own plate again.</p>
<p>Dinner ends with a feeling of hope, evening passes with a sensation of joy even though Bruce had once again refused to come into the office to work on the generator. As the night draws on Jeremiah—as is so often when he is all alone in the cold darkness, where he used to be perfectly content, where he now hated to be—cannot sleep, and so he goes to the holding cell even if Bruce will not be awake to talk with him, or lean his back against him. </p>
<p>Bruce is not in his bed and for a moment Jeremiah is flooded with panic—had he tried to run after all, was he in the office right now attempting to figure out how to unlock the doors—until he sees a slip of paper left on Bruce’s bed. A note that says, quite simply: in the library. </p>
<p>Jeremiah goes there, of course, to be absolutely sure that Bruce is where he ought to be. </p>
<p>He finds him asleep on the loveseat, the same flannel blanket that had once covered them both folded in half over his legs. Jeremiah feels nothing but the utmost affection as he looks upon Bruce and contemplates whether or not he should risk waking him by carrying him to his bed. He steps towards him even after deciding that he had better not—just in case Bruce woke up and started struggling to free himself from Jeremiah’s arms in a way that would bring back recent, painful memories for them both—always unable to resist the honeyed lure of Bruce so completely at peace. He smiles as he leans down to press an adoring, soft kiss into Bruce’s curls.</p>
<p>“Goodnight, Bruce,” he murmurs, taking the blanket from Bruce’s lap and unfolding it in order to tuck him underneath of it more securely. “Sweet dreams.”</p>
<p>He goes to bed knowing that the morning would bring an opportunity for another fresh start, another new beginning.  </p>
<p>And he is not disappointed. </p>
<p>Like some kind of divine signal that everything is finally taking a turn for the better, when Bruce steps into the kitchen in the morning he is wearing a softly woven sweater in a muted blue. It is not the same radiant colour that the generators will give off, but it is similar enough that the sight of it is sufficient to make Jeremiah pause. He yearns to see Bruce in the blue light of their shared creation which will change so many things. He knows that, if only Bruce would come and work on the generator in the office with him, the space between them would lessen just as it had before.</p>
<p>“Good morning, Bruce,” he calls out from where he is standing at the counter. “Could I interest you in some coffee, pancakes, eggs—” Eternal and undying loyalty and love? “—or maybe oatmeal? Anything that you want,” he vows. “Just name it.” As long as it wasn’t going aboveground. </p>
<p>Bruce steps towards him and pauses on the other side of the counter instead of looking through the pantry on his own. He’s got a somewhat scrutinizing look in his eyes, but Jeremiah doesn’t mind, because Bruce is actually meeting his gaze head-on.</p>
<p>“I don’t suppose,” Bruce begins slowly, and Jeremiah attempts not to be obvious about the way that he’s holding his breath. “That we could make some French toast? If you’re up to it, of course, if not then I can—”</p>
<p>“I’m up to it,” Jeremiah interrupts swiftly. “I’ll make you a coffee and you can sit down at the table, I’ll get it all ready.”</p>
<p>Bruce’s fingers splay out against the countertop and he leans over it slightly, not breaking eye contact. </p>
<p>“I was hoping that I could help make it, actually.”</p>
<p>Because he still didn’t trust Jeremiah? Or because he genuinely enjoyed the work? Or for some other reason that Jeremiah couldn’t currently fathom? </p>
<p>“But I want to make it for you,” Jeremiah tells him slowly. “I want you to relax, and let me do this small thing for you, as—” An act of love. “—an act of friendship.”</p>
<p>“But I want to help you make it,” Bruce responds, “as an act of friendship. Will you not let me?” His brows begin to furrow slightly, an ill omen. “Will you not allow me to even—”</p>
<p>“You can, of course you can!” Even if Jeremiah would prefer to do everything himself for Bruce’s benefit, he wouldn’t deny Bruce something so simple as helping in the kitchen if that was what he was so set on. “It’s just that I want to do things for you, even if they’re the little things, even if they seem mundane and unimportant.”</p>
<p>Bruce’s expression briefly flickers, his face gaining a soft look which makes Jeremiah’s heart leap.</p>
<p>“You can make us some coffee, then, and we’ll work on the rest together.”</p>
<p>Together, Jeremiah’s mind rings. Together, together.</p>
<p>That was what he wanted most of all. </p>
<p>“Alright,” he agrees.</p>
<p>It is not quite what he planned, but despite that he counts it as a success. They sit adjacent to each other, and they eat together, and Jeremiah at least feels as if he’s done <i>something</i> for Bruce, even if Bruce had stubbornly insisted on helping instead of choosing to be waited on hand and foot. Bruce softly refuses to work on the generator again—though Jeremiah can’t help but think that his resolve on that point is weakening so much that it is only a matter of a day or two before he gives in completely—but he shows up in the kitchen just before one o’clock to help Jeremiah with lunch. He does the same at dinner, moving around Jeremiah’s space with almost the same level of ease that he used to, back before Jeremiah had taken him underground. </p>
<p>Jeremiah would ask exactly what Bruce was doing to keep himself busy which was so much more important than the generator, but even without spying on him he feels that he knows the answer.</p>
<p>The notebook.</p>
<p>The notebook that Bruce was probably filling with all sorts of thoughts and theories and anecdotes about Jeremiah; good and bad. Cruel and kind. Every single interaction that they had ever had analyzed by Bruce’s sharp mind to have its purpose determined. Every kind word that Jeremiah had ever said carefully weighed to affirm or deny its sincerity. Every action that Jeremiah took to make sure that Bruce was safe tested to see if Jerome’s insanity gas really hadn’t done anything to him.</p>
<p>Jeremiah reminds himself again, quite firmly, that he will not pry into it.</p>
<p>At the moment he was still holding information back from Bruce, and at the moment Bruce could hold information back from him. One day there would be no secrets between them. One day they would know each other so wholly that nothing could be kept secret.  </p>
<p>They part ways at night. Jeremiah approaches Bruce as he sleeps. Jeremiah ignores the notebook laid out beside Bruce’s bed and presses a soft kiss into his curls, inhaling and smelling the scent of his own shampoo instead of that faintly-sweet scent that he’d become used to. His heart thrums in his chest, and he whispers a goodnight.</p>
<p>And in the morning, it begins anew. </p>
<p>Jeremiah has the coffee ready for Bruce when he comes in this time, and Bruce has to smother a smile as he takes it, something which Jeremiah cannot seem to get over even as they begin to work side by side. They eat together, and Bruce begins to become more talkative, and although he refuses to come to the office he bids Jeremiah a soft goodbye before he leaves. Lunch is the same, as is dinner. They spend the evening in the library together, so similar to a night that feels so long ago, the first time that Bruce had been drugged. Bruce bids him goodnight when he leaves, and Jeremiah follows after him a few hours later to press a customary kiss to Bruce’s curls and wish him sweet dreams.</p>
<p>Night passes, the cycle begins anew.</p>
<p>The coffee is made, and Bruce approaches in a deep red button down with the faintest outlines of roses in a lighter red, and as he takes his mug from Jeremiah he says,</p>
<p>“I think I’m ready now.” He averts his eyes for just a moment, cupping the mug with both of his hands. “To work on the generator with you.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah could practically fall to the floor and weep, he’s so overjoyed. He tries not to smile too wide and fights the impulse to encircle Bruce in his arms, but the eager note in his voice is proof enough of his feelings.</p>
<p>“It makes me so happy to hear that, Bruce. I don’t think I could even explain how much I’ve missed working on it with you. I haven’t had the heart to do anything without you.” Not for the generator. Not on their tipping point into each other. He wanted Bruce involved in every step, from now to the end. And then, when the time came for them to make even more, they would work together just as seamlessly as they always had.</p>
<p>Bruce sips at his coffee and looks up at Jeremiah from underneath his eyelashes. His gaze is assessing and inquisitive, but there is something friendly in it, too. Like the way he used to look at Jeremiah when they were first getting to know one another. </p>
<p>Jeremiah feels warm and hopeful and brimming with love; he notices himself smiling as if unable to stop, and he is so full of anticipatory energy that he can hardly make himself sit still. When they make their way to the office after breakfast Jeremiah holds open the door for Bruce and gestures him inside with perhaps a little too much theatrics, judging by the somewhat wry look Bruce sends his way, but Bruce is in the office, is fully stepping inside after far too long, is going to stay here with him again of his own volition.</p>
<p>Jeremiah’s true heart finally with him, as Bruce should always be.</p>
<p>As he would always be, from now on.</p>
<p>He closes the door and watches for a few moments as Bruce glances around, as if to regain his bearings, and eventually Bruce’s eyes settle on something other than the generator. </p>
<p>“What’s this?” Bruce picks up a crumpled piece of tracing paper from the floor. </p>
<p>The paper that Jeremiah had traced his maze onto to figure out the positioning of the new generators, before he realized that he should let Bruce have an opportunity to voice his opinions about where they were placed because otherwise Jeremiah had decided everything by himself, which was obviously not what Bruce wanted in any sort of partner. Jeremiah watches Bruce pull at the edges of the paper, flattening out the image, and he forces himself to stay calm. </p>
<p>“It’s nothing.” Jeremiah doesn’t pull it right out of Bruce’s hands, because that would be highly suspicious even for him. Bruce might even recognize the linework from the new maze done in black and red which was posted up on his wall, and if Jeremiah gave too much away Bruce might look into that a little more closely. “Just an idea that I was toying with before I decided to discard it. I must have missed my waste-paper basket.”</p>
<p>“I’ve seen this before, haven’t I?” Bruce’s eyes raise, then, finding the black and red layout of the new maze with very little difficulty. Jeremiah is touched that he remembers, but also worried that he remembers. His other half was clever, after all, and more than capable of solving a mystery. “You put that up weeks ago, are you reworking the design?” He eyes the blue circle nestled in the heart of the traced maze. The one redeeming factor about the current situation is that Bruce does not yet know what colour light the generators give off, otherwise he would be doubtlessly putting a few pieces together. “Or adding something into it?”</p>
<p>“It’s an addition.” Sort of. “The big details are all ironed out.” The buildings that would fall, the timing of the detonations, which load bearing walls would need to be taken out to ensure they fell the right way. “But some of the smaller components will need readjusting.”</p>
<p>“An addition to your maze?” Bruce folds the paper up. “One hundred acres isn’t enough for you?”</p>
<p>It’s not just for me, Jeremiah thinks affectionately. It’s for <i>us.</i></p>
<p>“It’s good to change things up, every once in a while.”</p>
<p>Bruce hums under his breath and rolls the paper into a ball, lobbing it into the waste-paper basket. </p>
<p>“I suppose you’re right,” he remarks softly. “As long as the change is for the better.”</p>
<p>It is, it is, Jeremiah thinks fervently, watching as Bruce steps up to the generator with a racing heart. </p>
<p>Bruce reaches one hand out toward it, fingers delicately tracing along metal. His expression is soft and at peace, with the slightest of smiles pulling at his lips.</p>
<p>He’s so charming when he smiles. Jeremiah wants to make him smile all the time. </p>
<p>“It feels like it’s been so long since I’ve worked on this with you,” Bruce says under his breath, serene gaze briefly turning crestfallen. Jeremiah worries, then, that he will change his mind about working on the generator, if only because the hurt that Jeremiah had caused him by forcing him underground was still too fresh. After a few moments, though, Bruce’s melancholy seems to either dissipate or is purposefully tamped down. “You might have to give me a refresher to spark my memory.” Before such a thing might have been stated with a timidly shared smile or a knowing glance toward him, but Bruce only looks at the generator, now.</p>
<p>“I can do that,” Jeremiah promises, stepping forward to stand on the side of the generator opposite from Bruce. “We can even go back to the very basics, if you’d like.” He lays a hand upon it, too, mirroring Bruce. “I want you to know this in and out just as well as I do. This is ours, Bruce. It’s beautiful, and awe-inspiring, and it’s ours. This exists because of you and I, no one else.” Jeremiah looks upon Bruce and thinks of him in the blue light; elevated above all in Gotham, made divine with a halo of their own creation. “This never would have happened, if not for you. Meeting you brought so many good things into my life, Bruce.” He pauses, worrying his lower lip between his teeth, wondering how much he can get away with saying. “Yourself, most of all,” he adds on quietly. </p>
<p>Bruce’s eyes dart to the side, as if shy in the face of such high regard.</p>
<p>“Because,” he begins tentatively, the subdued smile gracing his mouth again, though with a touch of bemusement. “I’m like the spring?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Jeremiah breathes.  </p>
<p>But there was more to it than that. More left unsaid.</p>
<p>But not for much longer. </p>
<p>Bruce is silent for several moments, eyes fixed upon one spot as he seems to come to some sort of decision. When he turns his attention in front of him his gaze remains on the generator.</p>
<p>“I’d like it if you could go over everything with me again. I want to know this just as in-depth as you do. I want to understand it. I have time, now—” His smile fades, his eyes grow pensive. “—to put all of my attention into it. I wasn’t able to, before. There was always so much going on in the background of my life.” He sighs, and mutters, “Always so much going wrong.”</p>
<p>“We’ll start from the very beginning, then. We can take it apart and put it back together.” It’s not as if they don’t have the time. It would only take a few straight days of work to get it back to its almost-finished state, now that all of the trial and error was over with. “I’ll do each step with you, I’ll show you everything and explain it all. We’ll work on it together, the entire time.” Before there had been so much that Jeremiah had done without Bruce’s presence, but this time would be different.</p>
<p>“You’ll let me put it together with you?” Bruce’s eyes flick up to him for a moment. “You won’t just do it all yourself?” </p>
<p>Bruce wanted the control that Jeremiah had stripped away from him when he’d been forced underground. Bruce didn’t want to sit back and do nothing as work was done. Jeremiah wanted to do so much for Bruce—to pamper and adore and protect and love, so much that it verged on mollycoddling—but Bruce obviously wasn’t receptive to that kind of care. Maybe someday he would be, but at the moment he seemed to take Jeremiah’s attempts to do everything for him as just another way to assert come kind of command over him. And it wasn’t that. Jeremiah didn’t <i>mean</i> for it to come off like that. Jeremiah wasn’t actively trying to make their roles imbalanced.</p>
<p>But perhaps Bruce saw it that way even with the simple, mundane things. Perhaps that was why, even now, Bruce wouldn’t take anything from Jeremiah that he hadn’t had a hand in preparing other than his coffee, which took such little effort overall that it seemed barely worth mentioning. </p>
<p>“I want you to do this with me,” Jeremiah tells him. “I want you involved in every part of it from start to finish.”</p>
<p>“And then, when it’s all done—” Bruce’s hand falls away from the generator and he seeks out Jeremiah’s eyes, locking onto them without wavering. “—Gotham will be safe for me?” His lips purse, still disbelieving, but likely not wanting to ask too many questions in case it made Jeremiah change his mind about the generators being the direct source of his future safety. Perhaps that was why he wanted to look everything over from the beginning, to try and figure things out for himself. Precious dear, Jeremiah loves Bruce’s cunning, even if it makes things more difficult for him. “And I can go aboveground again?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Jeremiah promises. “Once the generators are ready to go live—” Or rather: overload. “—we can both leave this place behind.”</p>
<p>Bruce blinks as if startled, as if he had thought that Jeremiah would let him cross back over the threshold to the aboveground world <i>alone</i>.</p>
<p>“You’re going to come above with me?”</p>
<p>“Of course I am, Bruce.” Even within the new maze, Bruce would be safest with him. Jeremiah could hardly bear to be parted from him now, when Bruce was always nearby and only out of eyesight for at most a few hours at a time. That wasn’t going to change in the future. </p>
<p>“You realize that you’ll have to explain this situation to other people, right? It will be suspicious for me to return and for you to come aboveground at the same time, and I don’t know—I don’t know if I can lie to Alfred about everything that happened. Even if I did, he’s known me my whole life, he knows when I’m lying. If you leave your bunker someone might take you away, Jeremiah.” Bruce’s voice is soft with emotion, as if grieving Jeremiah’s loss already, as if Jeremiah would ever allow himself to be lost or stolen from Bruce’s side. “You might even…” Bruce’s hands waver, on the verge of reaching out. “You might get thrown into Arkham, even if no one knows about the trap with Jerome’s gas.”</p>
<p>How sweet it is that Bruce was so worried about him. </p>
<p>Jeremiah wants to plaster him with kisses for hours.</p>
<p>“Leave that to me Bruce, I have it all figured out.”</p>
<p>Bruce’s expression becomes pinched, but he doesn’t bring it up again. </p>
<p>Together they begin to dismantle the generator—a process that takes nearly an entire day on its own, to be sure that each piece is accounted for and placed in a way to ensure that it won’t become lost amongst all the others—and step by step they will put it back together by hand. Jeremiah will teach Bruce and show Bruce so many things over the countless hours that they will spend together without interruption—no calls from Alfred, no outside friends demanding his attention, no need to get home before it became late, no need to go anywhere.</p>
<p>When every piece is laid out in a particular kind of organized chaos they call it a day. When they come back in the morning it feels like <i>finally</i> this is their new beginning that Jeremiah has been hoping for, <i>finally</i> things are on track again after being pushed so far off course. </p>
<p>Bruce smiles his subdued smiles, and listens carefully, and avidly watches Jeremiah’s hands work as he thoroughly showcases what to do and explains in depth purely for Bruce’s benefit. It feels like what they used to have—Bruce and Jeremiah, and the generator—except now it is even better than before, because there is an element of collaboration that they hadn’t quite reached back when Bruce was only able to come underground sporadically. Now they have an opportunity to do everything side by side; the way they are meant to, the way they will for the new generators, the way they will be from now on.</p>
<p>It feels <i>good</i> to work with Bruce again, and it is such a highly desired thing that when Jeremiah’s phone vibrates softly in his pocket—likely a call from Ecco to keep him updated—he ignores it in favour of continuing on.</p>
<p>When another call happens fifteen minutes later he figures that it might be important enough for him to take, as Ecco rarely felt the need to call again in such quick succession. </p>
<p>“I’ll be right back,” he says to Bruce as he steps away, taking one final moment to look at the way Bruce is knelt on the floor, cradling what will become the heart of the generator in his hands, before he steps outside of the office and closes the door behind him.</p>
<p>When he slips his phone out of his pocket he sees that it is not Ecco calling him, however. In fact it is a number that he’d rather not see at all. Still, he accepts the call and brings the phone to his ear, moving further away from the closed office door to ensure that Bruce will not possibly be able to overhear him. </p>
<p>“Hello?”</p>
<p>“Hello Jeremiah,” Detective Gordon’s voice crackles in his ear. He sounds about as eager to talk to Jeremiah as Jeremiah is to talk to him; which is to say, not at all. Jeremiah doesn’t bother with any polite greetings or small talk, instead getting straight to the point. </p>
<p>“Detective Gordon, is this call about Bruce?” Had they found his car, his phone, had Ecco not been thorough enough when getting rid of them? When Ecco had ensured that Alfred knew that Bruce was still alive, had suspicions towards Jeremiah sparked up again? “Have you found something, have you found him?”</p>
<p>“We’re working on it,” Jim replies firmly, and no doubt intentionally vague. “But this call isn’t about Bruce. I was chosen to contact you because of our previous acquaintance with one another.” </p>
<p>“Oh?” Why in the name of—</p>
<p>Oh. </p>
<p>“As you are Jerome’s next of kin, and I’m sure you’ll need a few days to make preparations, I’m calling to inform you that in several days’ time his body will be ready to be released from our custody.”</p>
<p>
  <i>Oh.</i>
</p>
<p>Jeremiah is silent for a long moment, something like feverish anticipation beginning to bubble up beneath his skin, something like wild laughter echoing in the distant corners of his mind.</p>
<p>“Thank you, Detective Gordon,” he murmurs into the phone. “What is it that I have to do?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Jeremiah very nearly does something unforgivably stupid but thankfully this simp has experienced the wonders of <s>True Love</s> Character Development.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The day that Jerome is due to be buried will mark the eleventh day of Bruce being forced underground.</p>
<p>In two days’ time, on the twelfth, so many things were due to happen all at once.</p>
<p>The first of his messages would be heard in the early morning, as Jerome’s cult gathered around his grave and mourned him in their own strange way. Jeremiah hadn’t been able to record a new message for the Maniax which better reflected his plans out of fear that Bruce would stumble upon him, but the old were not so different from the new that Jeremiah couldn’t work with what he had. Ecco would approach just after midnight, disguised, and would play the tape that Jeremiah had recorded two weeks ago. The cultists would dig Jerome up, thinking that they were doing so at his behest, and only one would be taken into the fold to be told a few truths about who was really running the show. </p>
<p>Jongleur would be given a piece of falsified information—different from the one that Jeremiah had originally concocted several weeks ago, different from the one that Jeremiah had concocted a week and a half ago—to give to Detective Gordon when they inevitably crossed paths. </p>
<p>Later in the morning the second of his messages would be sent to the GCPD, only minutes before the Maniax were due to arrive, and then the GCPD would be quickly overrun by the wake-goers. </p>
<p>Out of love for Bruce, and a desire not to hurt him by specifically targeting the people that he cared for, the third message would never be seen or heard. Jim Gordon would be led out of the city by Jongleur’s report, but not lead underground for what would have been his inescapable execution via the lie that Jeremiah and Bruce were already dead or the lie the Bruce had been spotted aboveground near the bunker. Instead, working with Jim’s obvious continued distrust, a false lead on Bruce and Jeremiah’s location would take him out of the city and keep him out of the GCPD in preparation for when Jeremiah approached it. Jim’s ongoing survival would make it more difficult to sway the Maniax to Jeremiah’s side, but Jeremiah was up to the challenge of doing things the hard way if it ensured that Bruce wouldn’t despise him for murdering one of his father-figures.</p>
<p>Shortly afterwards the first bomb would detonate, and Jeremiah would show his true face to the Maniax who had gathered in an attempt to torment and drive him crazy in the cemetery, as per the tape’s old orders. The lab at Wayne Industries would be raided and the other bombs stolen. The turncoat Maniax would be used, then, both to place the bombs in all of the precise locations that Jeremiah had mapped out and as a force to keep Jeremiah from getting shot in the street while he approached the GCPD as his true self. He would give his demands, and mercifully offer time for civilians to escape, and blow up the clock tower to prove that he was dead-serious. </p>
<p>People would die, yes, but not people that Bruce knew, or personally cared about. </p>
<p>Still, Bruce was such a tender, considerate soul; he routinely cared for others too much and for himself not enough. He would not enjoy the devastation the way that the Maniax would, nor would he be able to see it from a purely logical standpoint like Jeremiah was able to. Bruce was a bleeding heart, and Jeremiah loved him for it—spring was the return of light and life and all good things. Bruce would not be Bruce if he did not have the warmth of kindness and goodness stemming from inside of him at all times—but sometimes cold, calculating decisions had to be made with only the end-goal in mind. Bruce, Jeremiah knew, was someone who considered every single step of a plan instead of just working determinedly towards the end-goal, and was likely to attempt to put a stop to things that he felt were morally wrong.</p>
<p>And Bruce, though he seemed to have truly begun settling into his rightful place—beside Jeremiah, whether that was above or below—would be difficult to keep track of during the excessive commotion of the day even if he weren’t actively attempting to pull Jeremiah’s plan off course. </p>
<p>What if Ra’s al Ghul had been lying in wait for Bruce to turn up aboveground so that he could be taken <i>again</i>?</p>
<p>What if Bruce—once he felt the sunlight and breathed the fresh air and stepped upon the Earth’s surface again—tried to run?</p>
<p>It was with a heavy heart that Jeremiah had begun to realize that in order to move Bruce to Jeremiah’s new hideaway safely, he must be induced into an unnatural sleep yet again. Jeremiah, unsurprisingly, feels much worse about that than the idea that many people who he didn’t know and didn’t care for would meet their untimely end as his scheme unfolded. </p>
<p>Knowing what he must do, and knowing how much damage it could do if carried out poorly, he made one final edit to his plans.</p>
<p>The completion of the generator in the office, which was once due to be tested on the morning of the same day that everything else happened, is moved forward by one day. Tomorrow, on the evening of the eleventh day, the bunker would be disconnected from the power grid, and Jeremiah would see Bruce—drenched in blue radiance, eyes full of wonder—look upon that which they were capable of together in reverent, silent exaltation. Afterwards Jeremiah would make him tea—the honey would soon be suffused with crushed pills that had been dissolved into water and mixed into it, so that Jeremiah could prepare everything right in front of Bruce without a hitch—and when Bruce woke up he would be in a different room with a note left by Jeremiah promising that he would return to Bruce’s side as soon as possible. </p>
<p>It would be the last time that Jeremiah ever outright deceived him.</p>
<p>Jeremiah takes out the prescription bottle for Xander Wilde. </p>
<p>Jeremiah finely crushes the remaining pills.</p>
<p>Jeremiah mixes them with just enough boiling water to fully dissolve them.</p>
<p>Jeremiah stirs and waits—pulse hammering in his chest, a sick feeling twisting in his stomach—for the mixture to fully integrate together. When there are no lingering traces of sediment he swallows heavily and looks into in the cupboard for the final piece to this last full deception. </p>
<p>He stares at the jar of honey; once he had fully incorporated the medication into it just one spoonful would be enough to ease Bruce into a deep enough sleep that he wouldn’t wake up when he was moved, but—</p>
<p>Jeremiah can’t seem to bring himself to reach for it.</p>
<p>He feels torn. On one hand Bruce might be awake to be moved, and the complications that could arise from that are many and include the devastating possibility of Bruce trying and succeeding in running away. On the other hand is the knowledge that when Bruce wakes up somewhere new he will know that Jeremiah had done something to him, and the complications that could arise from that are many and include the devastating possibility that the steadily decreasing rift between them would become a chasm, one so deep and wide that Jeremiah would not be able to cross it.</p>
<p>Now that he is on the verge of lacing honey with medication he feels himself sinking into the depths of uncomfortable truths, because if Jeremiah betrayed Bruce’s trust so completely by drugging him again Bruce might not ever forgive him, no matter what Jeremiah’s reasoning had been.</p>
<p>Jeremiah stares at the honey, and distantly he realizes that his hands have begun to tremble.</p>
<p>The clock strikes twelve.</p>
<p>Bruce’s eleventh day underground has begun.</p>
<p>Jeremiah cannot stand to lose Bruce, could not possibly survive losing his heart, but he needs Bruce in more ways than just being physically near to him. He wants the kindness, and the understanding, and the collaboration, and the conversation; all of the things that had very slowly begun to return as he and Bruce worked together on the generator from start to finish. He wants Bruce to look at him with his eyes full of wonder again. He doesn’t want Bruce to feel as though Jeremiah has once again misled him and cruelly stripped him of all control without taking his thoughts and feelings into consideration. He doesn’t want Bruce to hate him. He doesn’t want Bruce to cry. They were supposed to be partners, equals, paired Sovereign.</p>
<p>King and Queen of utopia. </p>
<p>How could Jeremiah tell Bruce that he loved him if he had once again done something which he knew would hurt Bruce so much? If he did not love Bruce these things would be just another step towards his end-goal, but he did love Bruce, and he had already begun to change his plans specifically for Bruce’s benefit. Jeremiah had told him of Jerome’s trap without the originally intended additional deceit. The butler would not be kidnapped. Gordon would not die. Bruce would not be exposed to Scarecrow’s fear-toxin.</p>
<p>His hands curl into tight fists to stop the trembling.</p>
<p>Bruce would not be drugged again.</p>
<p>Jeremiah cannot lose Bruce, not for anything, not even to make his big day easier for himself. </p>
<p>There was a way to move Bruce to the new hideaway without having to take him aboveground to do it. The site where the first team had broken ground for the bunker had been sealed up long ago, hallways turned to dead ends so that no trespassers might find themselves wandering into Jeremiah’s domain. The walls that had been constructed to shut it off were heavily built, and it would be no easy task to open one up in order to carry Bruce through.</p>
<p>There were other concerns, too, which had been why the idea of moving Bruce while still underground had originally been vetoed. </p>
<p>What if Bruce tried to break out of the old bunker and succeeded? The old door was not as secure from the inside as the new ones. What if he tried and couldn’t? What if, in order to slip away, he ran into the maze through the newly opened doorway, unknowingly putting himself into terrible danger the closer he got to a bomb that was set to go off?</p>
<p>Not to mention that, without anything in his system to lull him into a deeper slumber, Bruce might rouse as he was moved and resist going anywhere.</p>
<p>But the alternative—Bruce never looking him in the eye again, Bruce never forgiving him, Bruce not believing anything that Jeremiah told him; not even the <i>I love you</i> that Jeremiah longs to tell him most of all—is so much worse. </p>
<p>Worse than death.</p>
<p>Jeremiah pours the mixture down the sink and watches it drain away.</p>
<p>It is done. </p>
<p>It is gone.</p>
<p>There would be no turning back from it. </p>
<p>He stares at the drain, something in the back of his head buzzing, like two distant voices trying to speak over each other. There is no screaming, no laughter, and the longer he stands and stares the quieter everything becomes, until all is silent.</p>
<p>“Jeremiah?”</p>
<p>He lurches and whirls around, muffling a shriek, heart abruptly thundering in his chest. Bruce shrinks away from him, obviously startled by Jeremiah’s reaction, eyes wide, a hand still partially outstretched as if he’d meant to lay it upon Jeremiah’s shoulder. Oh, how Jeremiah has longed for Bruce to reach out to him. Oh, how foolish he feels in the aftermath of this, reacting so violently to the sound of Bruce’s voice that he had missed out on the opportunity.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Bruce tells him, voice soft despite the fact that they are the only ones here and there is no one that he might risk waking up.</p>
<p>“I know,” Jeremiah sputters, feeling his face flush. “I was just so lost in thought, I didn’t hear you at all.” And when he had checked on Bruce half an hour ago he had been sleeping soundly. “What are you doing awake at this hour?”</p>
<p>“What are you?” Bruce returns. Not suspiciously, merely curious.</p>
<p>“I’m finding it difficult to settle in for the night,” Jeremiah says, which is certainly true. “I’m excited for tomorrow. Or today, I suppose.”</p>
<p>Bruce smiles; a soft, friendly sort of thing.</p>
<p>How could Jeremiah even have thought that he’d be able to stand drugging Bruce again? How had he come to the conclusion that the pros outweighed the cons when he knew exactly what the outcome would be, and exactly how much Bruce would be hurt when he woke up: groggy and disoriented and in an entirely new space a <i>second time</i> less than two weeks after the first? It would make it seem as if Jeremiah had learned nothing from the pain that he had caused. It would make it seem as if Jeremiah didn’t care if he hurt Bruce, as if he cared for his plans more than Bruce.</p>
<p>“I’m excited, too.” Bruce’s voice quickly pulls Jeremiah out of his spiraling thoughts. It didn’t matter what he planned to do; it mattered what he chose to do, and not to do. “I woke up a while ago and I couldn’t seem to go back to sleep.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah’s hands weave together, mostly to keep himself from reaching out to run them through Bruce’s sweetly mused hair. He wonders if Bruce rousing from his slumber had anything to do with Jeremiah’s favourite nighttime habit. Although Bruce isn’t yelling at him, or accusing him of anything, perhaps even through his sleep he had felt Jeremiah’s momentary presence and had known when he was left alone again.</p>
<p>Perhaps, in Bruce’s sleep, he had missed him. </p>
<p>Jeremiah’s heart flutters with romanticism. </p>
<p>“Can I get you anything?” He offers, though he suspects that Bruce will decline it. He can’t quite bring himself to mention a soothing cup of hot tea with honey. “Warm milk, perhaps?”</p>
<p>Bruce purses his lips together like he’s smothering a bemused smile. “I think I’d rather not,” he says after a moment, tone light. “What were you planning on having?”</p>
<p>“Nothing too heavy, just something that I can pick at until I feel ready to go back to bed,” Jeremiah responds, because he imagines lying about wanting to make himself a full breakfast at quarter past midnight will seem a little too obvious. “Fruit, maybe.” And then, on a whim, he adds on, “A pomegranate, I think. Would you like to split one?” </p>
<p>Bruce’s head tilts to the side ever-so-slightly. He looks soft and cozy in his pajama set, comfortably bare-foot and at home. Even though Jeremiah knows the chances of it happening are next to impossible he wishes that, after this, they could go back to bed together. Not even to do any of the things that Jeremiah thinks so ardently about—kissing and touching and trying to memorize sweet sighs and soft gasps—just to be close, and to stay close throughout the entire night.</p>
<p>Jeremiah wants to remember what it’s like to wake up to the feeling of Bruce beside him, content and warm. </p>
<p>“Sure, I’ll have half.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah nods and opens the fridge to pull one out from the produce drawer. He takes a knife to cut it open, as he had seen Ecco do a week and a half ago; taking off the top and then dragging lines down, following the natural segmentation of the fruit. He tries not to act overly-aware of the fact that Bruce is watching him as he takes it between both of his hands and splits it open, then sets it on a white plate.</p>
<p>The red seeds gleam, enticing. </p>
<p>He means to take it to the table, but Bruce hoists himself up to be seated on the edge of the counter instead, and something about that seems so casual—as if Bruce really has become used to it down here, really has started to grow accustomed to life wherever Jeremiah may be—that Jeremiah stays standing, gazing up at him as Bruce shifts to pull several red seeds from the white pulp. Jeremiah follows his lead, and soon they are both cradling a palm-full of seeds, but Bruce is looking down at his with a curious expression pulling at his face.</p>
<p>“Did you want me to get you something else?” Jeremiah suggests. “It’s no trouble, you know. You don’t have to take something from me that you don’t like.”</p>
<p>“It’s not that I don’t like it,” Bruce murmurs. “I’m trying to recollect a memory that’s just out of reach. A fairytale, or something like it.”</p>
<p>“A fairytale? Is this about getting trapped in a fairy circle again?”</p>
<p>A small smile twists at the corner of Bruce’s mouth. Jeremiah experiences a rush of unmistakable fondness and thrilling success, which is what he feels whenever Bruce smiles because of something that he’d said or done. </p>
<p>“No. No, I don’t think so.” Bruce takes one of the seeds from the palm of his hand. “Besides, I know that you’re not a creature of myth.” His smile curls a little wider, and he shoots Jeremiah a look that he hasn’t in a long, long time. Playful. Teasing. It makes Jeremiah’s heart race even faster. “You’re so logically minded, you wouldn’t be able to stand it if you were made up of something as illogical as magic.” The seed slips into his mouth and Jeremiah abruptly remembers a comment made by Ecco about feeding the pomegranate arils to Bruce by hand.</p>
<p>They’re not quite there yet, even now, but Jeremiah is very hopeful for the near future. </p>
<p>“You know me so well.”</p>
<p>“Do I?” Bruce asks, and though it is not voiced scathingly Jeremiah still feels a slight sting. “Sometimes I wonder. I thought I knew you so well, before.”</p>
<p>“I was hiding parts of myself away from you, before. You still knew me. You just didn’t know all of me.”</p>
<p>“Do I know all of you now?”</p>
<p>Jeremiah looks up into Bruce’s dark eyes. He thinks of the things that he has kept from Bruce. He thinks of the things that Bruce has kept from him. Someday soon there would be no secrets between them, but at the moment they were both holding cards close to their chest.</p>
<p>“No,” he answers honestly. “But you know me better than anyone else.”</p>
<p>Bruce hums lowly and brings his palm up to his mouth, tilting his head back to consume the rest of the seeds all at once. Jeremiah mirrors him without thought. Over the span of several minutes they strip all of the seeds from the pulp, and as the last arils are swallowed Bruce slips off of the counter and onto his feet.</p>
<p>“Goodnight, Jeremiah. I’ll see you in the morning.” He pauses. “Well, later in the morning, you know what I mean.” He flashes Jeremiah a subdued smile before turning. </p>
<p>“Goodnight,” Jeremiah calls after him, voice soft. “I’ll see you in the morning.”</p>
<p>As soon as he is back in his bedroom he places a call to Ecco, who does not answer, but Jeremiah fully trusts that she’ll return his call once she hears the message that he’s left her. </p>
<p>“Ecco,” he greets, “I’m going to need you to break down a wall.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>*kicks down your door*: Happy first day of spring!!!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On the evening of Bruce’s eleventh day underground the finishing touches of the generator are completed, one by one, with steady hands and smiling glances. Everything passes with a sense of shared exhilaration, until all there is left to do is slide a single panel into place. It shuts with a soft, barely-audible click when Bruce’s hand presses against it. His hand lingers on the panel, finger splayed out against the metal, and his eyes rove over the generator in reverent silence for several peaceful moments.</p>
<p>Jeremiah gazes upon him; more reverent, more adoring, more in love than ever. Their time working on the generator has not been the cure-all that Jeremiah had once—at the very beginning of Bruce’s time spent forcefully underground—assumed that it would be, but still, it was their tipping point into each other. Still, it was their most profound common goal. Still, it was what brought them together. Still, it was theirs, and no one else’s. </p>
<p>Between the work on the generator and the promise that Bruce’s time underground would soon be coming to an end their nearly-broken friendship has slowly shifted into something comparable to what it had been, before, though not exactly the same. They both are holding their own secrets back, and yet Jeremiah cannot help but believe that they know each other better, now, then they did previously. The rot that had begun to sweep through their relationship has been contained, the vanishing attachments tentatively healed, the seeds sown to promote more growth, all so that someday everything would be right as it should be. </p>
<p>He had meant it, when he told Bruce that Bruce knew him better than anyone else.</p>
<p>Someday he’d like to know Bruce better than anyone else, too. </p>
<p>Soon, he thinks with incredible fondness, there would be no secrets left between them. Soon they would reign from the center of the maze; safe and together, how they were meant to be.</p>
<p>“Is it really done now?” Bruce asks softly, fingertips gliding along the metal as his hand falls away. “Is it really time?”</p>
<p>“It is,” Jeremiah answers, voice soft, imbued with all of the warm feelings fluttering in his chest. The generator is theirs. This moment is theirs, too. Significant and full of sentiment; a manifestation of what they were capable of together. A good omen of what was to come; springtime in utopia. Jeremiah would break Gotham down and build it up better, and Bruce would then set his focus upon the maze—lifeless without Bruce, limited without Bruce, lost without Bruce; truly a reflection of its architect—and breathe life and light into it as if in an act of divine creation. All good things would be brought into what was once a wretched, corrupt city that was full of chaotic disorder and vile deeds.</p>
<p>Jeremiah feels as though he’s been waiting for this moment for his entire life. </p>
<p>Bruce turns to him, then, and Jeremiah’s breath abruptly catches in his throat to be on the receiving end of his tender gaze.</p>
<p>“Even if I knew that it was coming, at times it was hard to believe that you’d be able to get the generator program working so quickly.” </p>
<p>Jeremiah swallows heavily, heart racing behind his ribs. It feels like it’s been forever since Bruce looked at him like this, and Jeremiah feels fluttery and thrilled to see that open gentleness directed at him once again. He wants to take Bruce’s face between his hands, wants to feel Bruce lean into his touch, wants to press an adoring kiss to his forehead before finally, finally, sealing Bruce’s lips—all rose-petal softness, all youthful excitement—against his own. It is, as always, so difficult not to reach out to him and turn his swirling, loving daydreams into a reality. </p>
<p>He has so many swirling, loving daydreams.</p>
<p>He thinks about Bruce more than anything else. He thinks about Bruce all the time. </p>
<p>“Are you ready for a demonstration?” His tone is light, enthusiastic. He can’t quite seem to stand still, subtly rocking on his feet as if ready to race off at a moment’s notice. </p>
<p>A smile curls at the edge of Bruce’s mouth and he nods. </p>
<p>“If you hit that switch there—” Jeremiah’s eyes flick toward it, and Bruce follows his gaze. “—the facility will be disconnected from the power grid.”</p>
<p>“And after…” Bruce moves toward the switch, closer to Jeremiah than he had been, eyes locked on the generator once more. “Everything here will be running, just from this.” There isn’t any doubt in his voice; he had always trusted Jeremiah’s work so devotedly, right from the very start, back before they even knew more than each other’s names. </p>
<p>He had trusted Jeremiah’s work even when he didn’t trust Jeremiah. </p>
<p>Bruce’s hand lifts under Jeremiah’s watchful gaze, but before he flips the switch he casts another glance towards him.</p>
<p>Their eyes meet. Something in the air between them charges; waiting, wanting. The pull between them—magnetic, instinctive, electric—is stronger than ever. Jeremiah feels it keenly tugging at his heart, and he’s sure that Bruce must feel it, too. He has to. It cannot be only Jeremiah who experiences it; the connection between them bringing them closer and closer to their inevitable shared destiny. One cannot be without the other. Jeremiah cannot survive without his heart. </p>
<p>It was always meant to be them, together.</p>
<p>Together, Jeremiah thinks consciously. Together, together, echoes back at him in a whisper. </p>
<p>Eyes still locked with his, Bruce pulls the switch. </p>
<p>Darkness enshrouds them.</p>
<p>The dark is not cold and terrifying and full of unknowns. It is merely a peaceful emptiness waiting for a spark. Bruce is here with him, close to him, momentarily hidden in the black, but soon—</p>
<p>The air around Jeremiah stirs.</p>
<p>He feels the faintest brush of something warm and soft against the back of his hand. In the half second for his whirring mind to realize that it was Bruce’s fingers a dull, harmonious hum has begun to sound out.</p>
<p>And then, by and by, there is light. </p>
<p>He has already turned to look at Bruce—heart in his throat, knowing that Bruce must have come to stand almost directly beside him for his fingers to have skimmed against him—when the light begins to emit from the generator. In the precious seconds when all around them is a wash of vivid blue Jeremiah cannot help but think of how beautiful Bruce is, lit up by the radiance of their creation. And then, all around the bunker, the other lights begin to flicker on. The cool blue of the generator retreats from the warm oranges and yellows and whites of his office, but, as if drawn to that light—their light—Bruce makes his way towards the generator, almost as entranced with it as Jeremiah is with him.</p>
<p>He lifts a hand, delicately reaching out to once again touch that which they have created.</p>
<p>“Ambient energy,” he breathes. “Clean and stable.” He walks a half-circle around it before his gaze seeks out Jeremiah. </p>
<p>Bruce’s eyes are full of wonder. </p>
<p>Jeremiah’s answering words catch in his throat and his knees nearly buckle, heart overflowing, weak at the sight of something that he’s longed for so ardently. Bruce knows, already, exactly how it works. Bruce knows, already, just how much power this one generator can harvest from microtremors and air density shifts. Jeremiah doesn’t have to say anything.</p>
<p>“It’s going to change everything,” he manages, even though Bruce had known that ever since their first meeting. </p>
<p>It must have been the right thing to say, because Bruce <i>smiles</i>; warmer and more radiant than the sun. Looking at him is to forget that the dark and the cold had ever existed. Looking at him is to bid goodbye to the seemingly endless winter and welcome the oncoming spring. Looking at him is something that Jeremiah wants to do for the rest of his life.</p>
<p>“And with the prototypes at Wayne Labs we could power all of Gotham?”</p>
<p>The warm feeling in Jeremiah’s chest diminishes, somewhat. </p>
<p>“We could.”</p>
<p>They could, if Jeremiah weren’t already set on using them all for something much, much more ambitious and visionary. Powering Gotham would come later, with the second generation of generators which would be built once the dust had settled and the maze was complete.</p>
<p>“And then…” Bruce’s gaze turns to the generator again, and he steps even closer to it. Fully bathed in blue light he looks righteous, holy, a sacred icon who deserves to have his likeness immortalized in the ornate stained-glass windows of a church. “… Then Gotham would be safe?”</p>
<p>“Safer than it has ever been,” Jeremiah promises, stepping closer to him, unable to keep himself back. “It won’t be much longer, now, until we are both aboveground.” </p>
<p>Bruce’s expression shifts minutely—he still didn’t fully understand how the generators were the key to making Gotham safe; he still didn’t want to say so directly just in case it made Jeremiah change his mind about it—but nevertheless, he is obviously happy.</p>
<p>“We did it,” he whispers. “We really did it.”</p>
<p>“We have.” Jeremiah wonders whether, if he offered, Bruce would at least take his hand in some kind of congratulatory handshake. Jeremiah wonders whether, if he offered, Bruce would hold his hand merely for the sake of holding it. Bruce’s fingers had brushed against him, and although they had been in the pitch-black of the underground with no light sources he aches to think that it had been a complete accident. If Bruce had not wanted to risk coming into contact with him, then why had Bruce moved away from the switch at all? “And it’s beautiful.” His voice wavers with emotion, and when Bruce turns to look at him his expression is so soft that nothing could keep Jeremiah away from him. He takes another step, and his hand starts to lift—he remembers reaching out for Bruce at the start of this all, after he woke up from his induced slumber, when he was held tight in Ecco’s arms. He remembers how their fingers brushed and Bruce immediately flinched away from his touch—before it drops back to his side, cold and empty. </p>
<p>He doesn’t want Bruce to shy away from him, or to make him nervous, or ruin this moment—<i>their moment.</i> Bruce’s eyes flick down, though, having caught the movement. He worries his lower lip between his teeth, gaze briefly turning contemplative before gaining a determined edge.</p>
<p>“Jeremiah.” He reaches out with one hand, quick and quiet, grabbing onto Jeremiah’s fingers and very lightly squeezing them. Jeremiah feels his face grow warm, and he hopes that his sudden flush is at least a little camouflaged by the blue light. “We’ve done a very good job.”</p>
<p>He says it so seriously, so resolutely. Impossibly charmed by him, as he certainly always would be, Jeremiah grips back at Bruce’s hand and tries not to smile too wide, even though it is very difficult to hold himself back when he feels so much joyous exaltation. He has wanted so badly for Bruce to reach out to him, he has wanted so badly to feel the gentle touch of his soft hands. </p>
<p>He has wanted so badly to hold, and to be held in return.  </p>
<p>“We have,” he proclaims. “I always knew that we would.” </p>
<p>Bruce’s fingers begin to pull away, but Jeremiah holds him tight.</p>
<p>Just for a little longer, he thinks. Please, please, just for a little longer.</p>
<p>He’s missed it so much, the casual touches that had seeped into their old friendship before Jeremiah had forced Bruce underground. Bruce easily entering into his space, or laying a hand upon his shoulder, or lightly nudging against him, or their fingers brushing as an object was passed from one to another. </p>
<p>Bruce stills, and he gazes down at their joined hands.</p>
<p>He doesn’t say anything, at first, but Jeremiah can feel something building up as they stay in contact with one another. </p>
<p>“It will be springtime soon,” Bruce eventually remarks, that faint, bemused smile twisting at his mouth as it always did whenever spring happened to be mentioned, ever since Jeremiah had voiced the comparison of it to him. “Do you still want to see it with me?”</p>
<p>“More than anything.”</p>
<p>Bruce’s hand slips away. Jeremiah’s fingers twitch at its loss. Bruce stares up at his face, eyes intense. </p>
<p>Jeremiah can’t be entirely sure what might be going on in his head, but he suspects that it’s a thought process similar to what Bruce had voiced when he first learned about Jerome’s trap. ‘You need help. Let me try and help you.’ Or perhaps he is even thinking about the concerns he had expressed upon learning that Jeremiah was planning on coming above with him once the generators were ready. ‘If you leave your bunker someone might take you away.’ Bruce worries so much, though he hardly ever seems to verbalize it, so used to internalizing his concerns.</p>
<p>Why say it aloud, when he can instead keep it secret?</p>
<p>Why say it aloud when it can be written down in a notebook, Jeremiah thinks fretfully. </p>
<p>“Then I guess we’ll see it together after all, now that everything is ready and you’ve forwarded all your notes,” Bruce says, asking without directly asking whether or not Jeremiah had a set timeframe for when Bruce could finally step onto the surface of the Earth again; free to feel the sun and breathe the air and see the sky once more. </p>
<p>“Not tonight,” Jeremiah tells him honestly. Tonight, in a few hours’ time, the Maniax would begin gathering around Jerome’s fresh grave. Tomorrow morning, just after midnight, Ecco would approach them. Once she was done passing along messages she would return to the old bunker to finish demolishing the wall that Jeremiah had asked her to break down, and Bruce would be moved with hopefully very little trouble. “But I have a good feeling about tomorrow.” The wake. The cemetery. The Maniax. The bombs. The GCPD. The clocktower. The evacuation.</p>
<p>The maze.</p>
<p>“Maybe, if all goes well, we could watch the sun rise together the day after.”</p>
<p>In his dreams he has watched skyscrapers fall with the warmth of Bruce beside him, but even now, when there are so few surprises left in store for Bruce tomorrow and none which he might find hurtful on a personal level, Jeremiah does not think that those parts of the dreams will come true. Yet within those same dreams he and Bruce had watched light dawning over a city that has been remade and that, he thinks, can be turned into a breathtaking reality.  </p>
<p>Bruce’s eyes flit over his face, searching for any insincerity, any doubt, any reason not to trust him. Jeremiah means what he says, even though he doesn’t say everything.</p>
<p>“Sunrise the day after tomorrow,” he muses softly. “I’d like to see it with you.”</p>
<p>Bruce means what he says, even though he doesn’t say everything. </p>
<p>Despite that when they do part ways for the night their moods have not been soured by any secrecy. Just before he steps out of the office Bruce casts a final, lingering glance inside. He is far enough away from the blue light that it doesn’t paint across his skin or create a halo around him, but it is caught and reflected in his eyes. When he turns to leave he catches sight of Jeremiah watching him, and he manages another small smile.</p>
<p>“Goodnight, Jeremiah,” he bids gently. “I’ll see you in the morning.”</p>
<p>“Sweet dreams, Bruce,” Jeremiah answers back. “Until morning.”</p>
<p>Morning was only three hours away. Soon everything would truly begin. </p>
<p>They go their separate ways, and the generator stays on to harvest more power.</p>
<p>Knowing that falling into the trap of playing a waiting game with time itself will only leave him worse for wear tomorrow Jeremiah settles into his bed after a quick shower—dutifully resting with his eyes shut although true, deep sleep escapes him—until an alarm on his phone goes off to signal that midnight has fallen upon Gotham. He rouses easily from his shallow slumber, and as minute after minute ticks by his thoughts begin to race as he waits for confirmation from Ecco that her first tasks of the night were successfully completed.   </p>
<p>He paces through the corridors that he had once been so proud to plan out and create and which would soon be destroyed; too on-edge to continue to hole up in his room or even in his office, too worried about going to see Bruce and waking him up accidentally to settle his nerves by spending an unknown amount of time at Bruce’s bedside. It still wouldn’t be hours, yet, until Bruce could be moved, because if he did wake up—not entirely unlikely, since he wasn’t drugged—Jeremiah wanted to make sure he didn’t spend too long in the oldest part of the bunker, which simply was not as secure as it hadn’t received the same updates as the other sections. Weaker doors, no cameras, what would soon be a hole in the wall leading back into the danger of Jeremiah’s maze, not to mention the particulars for his Plan D in the sealed anteroom, which Ecco continued to insist on calling his ‘purge room’.</p>
<p>His steps slow as a turn that would bring him down a path towards Bruce’s room comes up beside him for what feels like the dozenth time and belatedly he realizes that he’s been walking in a loop, orbiting around Bruce even without consciously meaning to. A smile tugs at his lips. His feet seem to instinctively guide him into the turn. It shouldn’t be much longer until he got confirmation from Ecco about her success, and he could just check if Bruce was sleeping. He wouldn’t take any risks that might wake him up before Jeremiah could even attempt to move him. He just wanted to see him again.</p>
<p>He has only just stepped into the hallway, intent on turning a leisurely six-minute walk into a brisk three, when his phone vibrates in his pocket. </p>
<p>‘I’m on my way,’ reads Ecco’s message. ‘I’m bringing someone to help with the rest of the wall. Jongleur wants to see you for himself, so I may as well put him to work. I expect it will take a few hours.’</p>
<p>A leisurely six-minute walk is turned into a very brisk two, his pace only slowing at the final turn to Bruce’s room. It is dim and silent, and inside lays Bruce, peacefully sleeping, completely unaware of the many changes this day would bring. Completely unaware of the many changes this day had already gone through; previous plans discarded and reimagined and reconsidered, all for him. </p>
<p>Jeremiah steps into the quiet of the room. Bruce is laid on his side, his back to Jeremiah, and as Jeremiah comes closer he can see that something is loosely gripped in Bruce’s hand.</p>
<p>The notebook.</p>
<p>Did you drift to sleep while writing theories about me, Jeremiah wonders, fingers itching. Or did you drift to sleep while thinking about what we’re capable of when we’re together?</p>
<p>He reaches for it. He’s not going to peek. He just can’t risk it falling out of Bruce’s limp hand later on when Jeremiah tries to move him and possibly waking him up. He takes it by the spine and gently lifts it, meaning to lay it just out of Bruce’s reach as if he himself had pushed it away during sleep, so that if he did wake up between now and the time that they must depart he wouldn’t realize it had been moved on purpose. He means to set it aside and be done with it forever; the book would be too close to the epicenter of the explosion to survive, and the many secrets hidden inside the pages would burn up in a fraction of a second. </p>
<p>It would almost be symbolic.</p>
<p>With no more pages to scrawl his thoughts onto perhaps Bruce would speak the ones he kept most closely guarded aloud, so that all secrets between them could begin to vanish. </p>
<p>Something falls out from between the pages, light enough that it hardly makes a sound, dark enough that Jeremiah hardly catches sight of the movement. It takes a moment of looking for Jeremiah to be able to make it out, and when he figures out what it is warmth rises in his chest so suddenly, so violently, that he almost cannot bear to stand and so he does not, sinking to his knees at Bruce’s bedside as he had nearly two weeks ago, fingers reaching not into a cluster of fresh, ripped petals which had been torn from their stems, but for something so much more tender.</p>
<p>Pressed between the pages of the notebook had been a sprig of foxglove. </p>
<p>Bruce had saved one of the flowers, after all. Had even done what he could to preserve it, and to keep it near him, as if even when he mistrusted and loathed Jeremiah the most he couldn’t bear to destroy absolutely everything that Jeremiah had given him with only the utmost feelings of love in his heart. </p>
<p>The flattened flowers are dry and frail, and Jeremiah carefully picks the stem up between his fingers. He opens the notebook, not to look at any of the written contents inside, but to gently lay the foxglove between the very last pages, and he shuts it and lays it just outside the reach of Bruce’s limp fingers. </p>
<p>His heart is racing wildly at this discovery; such a small act of affection, and yet so indescribably immense. </p>
<p>“Bruce,” he whispers, too full of emotion to hold himself back from speaking aloud. “I love you.” He presses his customary kiss into Bruce’s curls, lingering for longer than ever before.</p>
<p>It has to mean something, it has to.</p>
<p>He steps outside of Bruce’s room, but finds he does not have the heart to go back to his own to attempt to drift into a shallow sleep for a few more hours. He sits instead, his back to the wall just outside Bruce’s doorway, taking comfort in his nearness, in his sweetness, in the muted sounds of his breaths.</p>
<p>He falls asleep, and he doesn’t dream.</p>
<p>He awakens to the soft vibrations of the alarm he’d set hours earlier. </p>
<p>He rises to his feet, stiff but sure that he is better rested than he would have been otherwise, and peers into the room. Bruce still lays sleeping, though he has shifted onto his other side, his face now clearly visible. He is at peace, and safe, and loved, and Jeremiah is going to make sure that he remains that way.</p>
<p>Jeremiah does one final round. Anything truly necessary has already been moved, all that is left which needs to be transported safely is himself and Bruce. Everything else would be gone, soon. These hallways would be nothing more than a memory, just as the old Gotham. </p>
<p>He steps into the office.</p>
<p>There it lays, the compact electrical engine which as little as two months ago he believed might take multiple years to turn into a reality. There it lays, his and Bruce’s tipping point into each other. He finds himself drawn toward it, not unlike Bruce had been hours ago.</p>
<p>He lays a hand upon it, where Bruce’s own hand had settled.</p>
<p>Jeremiah closes his eyes and thinks of Bruce haloed by this light—by their light—thinks of a crown of flowers laid upon his head by Jeremiah’s adoring hands, thinks of kissing him, thinks of loving him. He thinks of all the great and marvellous things that they will do, side by side, as they were always meant to be.</p>
<p>He takes one final look about the room, here, where his heart and soul were apparent no matter where one’s eyes might fall. When the slate was wiped clean and Gotham was remade in his and Bruce’s image their influence would be just as unmistakable as this.</p>
<p>Before he goes he does one last thing.</p>
<p>He turns an electric fan on its lowest setting. Late-night tests and many equations had left him sure that, with the generator already almost fully charged and with the safety features that they had installed stripped away last minute, it would only take several hours of this faint shifting of the air for it to reach the point where it would overload. It would be, as planned, right around the time where the Maniax were due to terrorize him in the cemetery on what they thought were Jerome’s final orders. </p>
<p>He leaves the office, he does not look back. </p>
<p>There are better and brighter things on the horizon.</p>
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<a name="section0012"><h2>13. A/N</h2></a>
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    <p>Sorry to do this guys but I'm putting this story on hiatus for a month or two. Longer works kinda drain me (and I was not expecting this to keep growing the way it did) and I need to recharge or else I'm going to drive myself crazy trying to get words down. Can't pour from an empty cup and all that. Love y'all. Stay safe. ❤️</p>
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